Whole-Home Humidifiers in Boulder/Denver
A properly sized, professionally installed, quality central humidifier can play an important role in improving your home’s indoor air quality, or IAQ. Reducing the viability of airborne viruses and bacteria, decreasing your chance of catching a cold or the flu, are among the many benefits of having the right humidity levels in your home. Standard, flow-through humidifiers are by far the most commonly installed central humidification product. These products are popular for their affordability, reliability, and ease of annual maintenance, and are healthy to use in our dry Colorado climate. For customers who need to control humidity more precisely, we carry high performance central steam humidifiers. Both of these types of products are designed to be installed on central forced air heating systems, which in our area most commonly use a gas furnace.
Why Humidify?
The advantages of adding more humidity to your indoor air during the heating season are several.
Here are some of the more important benefits they offer to most families and homes:
- Help in relieving common respiratory and skin ailments associated with dry air
- Helping to reduce the viability of airborne viruses and bacteria
- Helping to protect fine wood furniture, wood flooring, and musical instruments from cracking due to dryness
- Reduce airborne dust, pet dander, and more
- Reduce or eliminate static electric shocks due to dry air
- Provide equivalent comfort levels with thermostat set at lower temperature = lower utility bills!
Standard Humidifiers
In a standard, furnace-mounted, flow-through central humidifier, water is evaporated across a special media pad in the humidifier and your furnace delivers the moistened air into your home through the ducting system. Reservoir type standard humidifiers are still available, but the flow-through design is currently the most popular in the residential market. These humidifiers will do a good job of maintaining a consistent humidity level as long the furnace is running consistently. When conditions cause the furnace to be ‘off’ for lengthy periods of time, a consistent humidity level may be difficult to establish and maintain throughout the entire day.
Think of our beautiful, sunny Boulder-Denver days, when your heating system may not need to operate for hours on end. Unless you’ve got a lot of well-watered house plants, indoor humidity could drop significantly under those conditions. So with all standard humidifiers – which need hot air produced by the furnace to do their job – performance can be less than fully satisfactory, at times, especially in larger homes.
Regardless of their limitations, we have found these types of humidifiers to be quite popular with our customers. Our estimators and service techs always make sure that you are fully educated on the humidifier options you are considering, and performance expectations and annual service requirements are part of that important, low-pressure conversation.
Advantages of the Flow-Through Design
Flow-through central humidifiers offer a number of advantages, as compared to other design standard humidifiers or high-performance steam humidifiers:
- Most affordable style to have installed
- Low maintenance requirements
- No standing water to foster bacteria growth
- Routine maintenance is relatively simple and can often be performed by a capable homeowner; or, can be done by your trusted HVAC professional for a relatively low cost along with your regular annual maintenance
Steam Humidifiers
A central steam humidifiers should be considered when you want to be sure to establish a consistent humidity level in your home, 24/7. Steam models boil water in the humidifier and use the fan in your furnace or air handler to deliver the humidified air thru the ducting system into your home. These are the most effective, highest performing central humidifiers that we install.
Steam humidifiers are more costly to install, more maintenance-intensive, and less reliable than standard units – but when you know you want consistent humidification, a steam model may be your only effective choice. This type of humidifier is recommended for larger homes, and also to help protect wood flooring, antique furniture and musical instruments such as pianos and guitars. More importantly, if someone in your home has a health condition that requires consistent humidity levels around the clock, a steam unit is the right solution.
Save Home Heat has many years of experience installing and servicing a wide variety of reservoir and cannister type central steam humidifiers. If you are considering this type of product, we urge you to take advantage of the knowledge we’ve gained along the way. You’ll be glad you did!
If your Boulder-Denver home is heated by a hot water boiler or another non-ducted system, we recommend researching online and in local retail outlets for quality, proven portable humidifiers to service key areas of your home (we don’t sell these products). Increasing your number of houseplants can also help. On occasion, we install limited ducting systems with an air handler in homes that have hot water heat, dedicated solely to filtering, purifying, and humidifying the air.
Please contact our friendly, knowledgeable home comfort team today for expert assistance and professional, low-pressure recommendations on central humification products and other ways to improve the air quality in your home. Improve your health and indoor comfort levels with the right IAQ products.
Improve Your Home’s Humidity Levels Today!
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