Daily Home Renovation Tips

Yesterday, we wrote about insufficient humidity levels in our home and winter had just begun.

The first thing we checked was to see if the water was flowing into and out of the flow through humidifier. It was not. I found the on / off valve and turned the water on. I still have no idea who or how that valve had been turned off.

Next, I then checked that the damper from the flow through humidifier into the furnace was set at the winter setting so humidified air would actually go into the furnace. You can see the knob on the left of the humidifier unit in the picture below.

I also adjusted the humidity setting for the flow through unit by way of the humidity gauge which is placed in our case on the cold air return directly above the humidifier, again in the above picture.

Now, knowing that the humidity level in our home was less than desired the past couple of years, I wondered what more I could do.

One of the things I noticed once the water had started flowing through the pad inside the flow through humidifier was that it was still pretty much dry. When we moved into our current house two years ago I had asked around about this and was told that, no, the pads inside flow through humidifiers are never wet all over like a sponge; instead only parts on the inside of the pad are wet as the water passes.

So, to me, if I could get the pad to hold more water, then more humidified air would be generated and up would go the humidity level in our home.

So, one approach, would be to use a simply spray device to spray water on the pad, manually, every now and again.

Sure, this would be a painfully manual approach which would need to be done constantly. However, when I am not travelling I work at home, so this could help us in place of spending more money on buying multiple humidifier units and place them throughout out home. In this latter case, not only would I have to be spending money to make the purchase but I would also have to manually re-fill them likely daily. So, using a manual water sprayer, yes, in an old and thoroughly cleaned former Windex spray bottle , would not be so bad.

So, I tried this over the weekend to see if it did make a difference and if I would be able to remember to actually do this. Every so often, I sprayed sufficient water from the bottle onto the pad inside the flow through humidifier sufficient so the side of the pad facing the opening in the unit was wet.

But, this is not the end of what we tried to do in an effort to increase the humidity level in our home. There was one more thing I wanted to check.

This is where we pick things up tomorrow on this one of many home maintenance tips which may work for you.