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QUESTION:I am about to have a new furnace installed in my home and am considering
having an Aprilaire whole house humidifier installed along with it.
When I mentioned this to my energy auditor, he was against it, for the
following reasons:
(1) He said that a furnace humidifier will put moist air into the duct
work, promoting growth of mold and mildew.
(2) He said that running all that moist air through the furnace will
cause the furnace to wear out prematurely, perhaps by as much as 5 years
(via the moist air degrading furnace parts and components).
He suggested a stand-alone, whole house humidifier instead to avoid the
above problems.
Any comments as to whether his concerns are valid or not? Of course, he is
an energy auditor who will have a different agenda and viewpoint than an
HVAC tech.
But it seems to me that the manufacturers of furnace humidifiers would have
taken his concerns into consideration when designing their products. It
also seems to me that humidifying one's house centrally via the furnace and
ductwork would be much more effective that using a stand-alone unit.
ANSWER: And the stand alone won't? Still humidifies the air, still gets in the duct
work via return air. A stand alone still puts moisture in the are that will go through the
furnace and will still be moist. I see more furnaces rust out in humid
basement with the pilot left on in the summer than in the winter when the
furnace is running keeping all the parts dry. I don't know about any of the other techs in here, but I see furnace lasting
just a long as the ones that don't have a humidifier on them.
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