Humidity levels and humidifier woes

[ee2k]

Home ownership is fine. The only thing that i have not been able to win is the ability to maintain a level of humidity in my condo. When I replaced my floors and installed new laminate, the manufacturer had certain level of humidity requirements for warranty purposes (requires 40% relative humidity!) I had not one, not two, but four humidifiers running at the same time in a 1100sqft condo with a hygrometer in hand and I was not able to go above 36%. The only way I could bring up humidity anywhere close to 50% is by running both showers hot and keeping interior doors open. This is obviously not sustainable. Needless to say I gave up, and the whole filling tanks with water thing didn't agree with me.

There are a few floor planks with hairline fractures that i have noticed and I am not losing sleep over this losing game. What I did find was a Kenmore humidifier that i had bought from Sears two years ago but never unboxed. It is rated to humidify up to 2700sqft but I have not been able to get it to go over 35% - and this is with it running on high for 24 hours, requiring twice per day refills.

My question to those with portable humidifiers, what works for you? What's the highest you are able to achieve? Any secrets and approaches I could try?

[revelations]

did you close any air vents or air sources in your unit? otherwise its just going out as fast as its coming in.

I bought a room humidifier for my 800sqft unit and it worked fine after i sealed the door.

[ExtraSlow]

Yeah, air leakage is probably the issue. What's the heat source in your condo? Age of building? Have you sealed all doors?

[ee2k]

The condo is older, and yes there's forced air coming through the door from the hallways. I will have to look at sealing that. I left a towel on the bottom of door last night and woke up to 32% with the humidifier running at medium speed.

[ExtraSlow]

Well, you'll never successfully humidify the whole building, so if you can't plug the air leaks, you are going to have to forget about humidifying your space.

Note also that if air is coming in, it's going out somewhere else. Find that location as well.

[01RedDX]

.

[revelations]

One of the other condos I used to live in forced so much air from the bottom of the door that the carpet would always move away from it. In order to maintain control of the air, I had to partially seal the bathroom vent (no fan) as well as the range vent (didnt do much burning/cooking).

[ee2k]

Maybe I should go back to no longer caring about it. It's a losing battle.

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by ee2k
Maybe I should go back to no longer caring about it. It's a losing battle.

I gave up the battle on my own floors. They are original 1950's hardwood, and in the dead of winter they creak a bit, and gaps appear, but keeping my humidity levels high enough to stop this just created more issues with condensation then it was worth.

[suntan]

What is happening is that all the dry stuff in your place is sucking up all the moisture.

40% RH in Calgary in Feb is really, really hard to accomplish.

[ee2k]

Originally posted by suntan
What is happening is that all the dry stuff in your place is sucking up all the moisture.

40% RH in Calgary in Feb is really, really hard to accomplish.

And would you deal with this then? The dry stuff in the place that is.

[suntan]

Well just leave the humidifiers on if you want, it'll start going up eventually.

What kind of heating system do you have? If it's forced air and that air isn't humified properly then there's really no way you can raise it for just your condo.

[colinderksen]

I fight the battle of a lot of humidity. Trying to find the happy where it's not too dry in the house and windows aren't getting any condensate