Heating and air conditioning - Having trouble keeping my humidity up w/ AprilAire 700

Author

Having trouble keeping my humidity up w/ AprilAire 700

kirkbauer@gmail.com

2006-02-20, 1:21 pm

So, I got an AprilAire 700 installed recently (connected directly to
the hot water heater's hot water line) and have the humidistat set to
manual control at the maximum setting for the moment. Since I live in
Phoenix and (right now) my heat runs for no more than 30 minutes per
day, I had him connect it such that it might run (based on humidistat)
any time the blower is running.

I have a home automation system (home-built) and currently have it set
to run the blower-only from 9PM to 9AM Mon-Fri and constantly on the
weekend (during non-peak-energy time). Every hour it checks the
temperature and if the temperature is below the setpoint it changes it
back to auto mode for the hour to allow the heater to run. The next
hour it would change it back to fan-only. I'd say the heater would run
for (part of) one or two hours each day.

I started this last Wednesday so the humidifier should have been
running for at least 20 hours Wednesday-Friday and at least 44 hours
Saturday-Sunday. My house is 2300 sq-ft w/ vaulted ceilings and the
inside temperature ranges from 70 to 75 degrees F. My handheld
humidity sensor showed 20% relative humidity on Wednesday and a peak of
26% humidity on Sunday evening, down to 24% Monday morning. I
constantly verify that the humidifer is running by feeling the line
coming off of the hot water heater to see if it is hot and/or by
watching for water coming out of the drain pipe (which is fairly cold,
which to me means that evaporation must be occurring as it does not
seem likely that the water could cool off that much in such a short
distance (30ft) otherwise). There is a fairly constant trickle of water
coming out of the drain pipe from the humidifier... not sure if this is
too much or not.

So, my goal was to get up to 30 to 35% relative humidity. So far my
peak was 26%. Will it just take more time, or is my humidifier not
working well, or is my house leaking too much air? My house is frame
construction, stucco (sp?) on the outside, and is 8 years old. I guess
I'm just wondering if things are working as expected or if there is
something wrong -- and if so, where?

Thanks in advance!

Oscar_Lives

2006-02-20, 2:21 pm

<kirkbauer@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1140455067.039763.249060@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> So, I got an AprilAire 700 installed recently (connected directly to
> the hot water heater's hot water line) and have the humidistat set to
> manual control at the maximum setting for the moment. Since I live in
> Phoenix and (right now) my heat runs for no more than 30 minutes per
> day, I had him connect it such that it might run (based on humidistat)
> any time the blower is running.
>
> I have a home automation system (home-built) and currently have it set
> to run the blower-only from 9PM to 9AM Mon-Fri and constantly on the
> weekend (during non-peak-energy time). Every hour it checks the
> temperature and if the temperature is below the setpoint it changes it
> back to auto mode for the hour to allow the heater to run. The next
> hour it would change it back to fan-only. I'd say the heater would run
> for (part of) one or two hours each day.
>
> I started this last Wednesday so the humidifier should have been
> running for at least 20 hours Wednesday-Friday and at least 44 hours
> Saturday-Sunday. My house is 2300 sq-ft w/ vaulted ceilings and the
> inside temperature ranges from 70 to 75 degrees F. My handheld
> humidity sensor showed 20% relative humidity on Wednesday and a peak of
> 26% humidity on Sunday evening, down to 24% Monday morning. I
> constantly verify that the humidifer is running by feeling the line
> coming off of the hot water heater to see if it is hot and/or by
> watching for water coming out of the drain pipe (which is fairly cold,
> which to me means that evaporation must be occurring as it does not
> seem likely that the water could cool off that much in such a short
> distance (30ft) otherwise). There is a fairly constant trickle of water
> coming out of the drain pipe from the humidifier... not sure if this is
> too much or not.
>
> So, my goal was to get up to 30 to 35% relative humidity. So far my
> peak was 26%. Will it just take more time, or is my humidifier not
> working well, or is my house leaking too much air? My house is frame
> construction, stucco (sp?) on the outside, and is 8 years old. I guess
> I'm just wondering if things are working as expected or if there is
> something wrong -- and if so, where?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>

Double-Live GONZO!

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