Sheboygan County · Whole-home humidity control
Whole house humidifiers and dehumidifiers.
A whole house humidifier fixes the January air that cracks your lips and shocks you off the doorknob. A whole house dehumidifier fixes the basement that smells like a basement every July. Same house, opposite problems, six months apart.
- Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer
- NATE-certified technicians
- Locally-owned since 2008
- Sized to the house
- not the furnace
Two seasons, two problems
What each one is actually for
Most Wisconsin houses need both, and almost nobody needs them at the same time of year.
Winter: the house at 18 percent
Static shocks, nosebleeds, cracked lips, a cough that will not clear, gaps opening in hardwood floors and trim, a piano that will not stay in tune. Dry air also feels colder, so people run the thermostat two degrees higher than they need to. That is the part that shows up on the bill.
The three pillars
Summer: the basement at 65 percent
Musty smell, damp cardboard, cold surfaces beading up, and mildew on anything stored against an outside wall. Running the air conditioner colder is the usual attempt and it does not work, because a correctly sized system does not run long enough to dehumidify a basement. A ducted dehumidifier does it directly.
Cooling
The pad is not a lifetime part
An evaporator pad in Sheboygan County water scales up over a season and stops absorbing. A humidifier with a four-year-old pad is a box of noise. Pads get changed every heating season, and it is one of the line items on our fall maintenance visit.
Maintenance plansThree kinds of humidifier
Bypass, fan-powered, or steam
They all add moisture to the ducted air. What separates them is how much, how fast, and whether they depend on the furnace being on to do it.
| How they compare | Bypass | Fan-powered | Steam |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it works | Furnace blower pushes warm air through a wet pad in a bypass duct | Its own fan pulls air across the pad, no bypass duct needed | Boils water and injects vapour into the supply duct |
| Output in a January cold snap | Modest. Fine for an average, reasonably tight house | Roughly a third more than a bypass unit | The most by a wide margin |
| Does it need the furnace running? | Yes. It only humidifies on a call for heat | Mostly. It can run the blower on its own to deliver | No. It makes vapour independently |
| Space needed at the furnace | Room for a bypass duct looping return to supply | Compact, mounts straight to the duct | Compact cabinet, but needs its own electrical circuit |
| Water connection | Cold-water line | Cold-water line | Cold-water line |
| Seasonal upkeep | New pad each heating season | New pad each heating season | Canister replaced periodically, more upkeep overall |
| Running cost | Lowest | Low | Highest. It is an electric element boiling water |
| Best fit | Average-size, reasonably tight homes with room at the furnace | Larger or leakier homes, or a furnace with no room for a bypass loop | Large homes, very dry homes, or a house that still reads low with a pad unit |
All three connect to a cold-water line. If your house has in-floor or baseboard hydronic heat and no ductwork, none of these apply, because there is no air stream to humidify. Say so when you call and we will talk about the alternatives.
How we install
Six things we do that decide whether it works
Sized to the house, not the furnace
Capacity comes from the volume of the house and how leaky it is, not from the size of the furnace it bolts to. A tight 1,800 square foot ranch and a 1970s two-story of the same footprint need very different machines.
Set on outdoor reset, not a fixed dial
A humidistat that holds 45 percent all winter will run water down the inside of your windows at 10 below. We install controls that lower the target as the outdoor temperature drops, and we show you where the override is.
It connects to a cold-water line
Every whole-home humidifier needs a cold-water feed at the furnace. If there is no line within reach of the unit, we will tell you that at the quote rather than on installation day.
Dehumidifiers get ducted and controlled separately
A whole-home dehumidifier is tied into the return and runs on its own humidistat, independent of the thermostat. That is the whole point: it pulls moisture out on a mild, damp June day when the air conditioner is barely running.
We check airflow before we add restriction
A bypass loop and a media filter both change how your blower breathes. We take a static pressure reading first so we are not solving a humidity problem by creating an airflow one.
We check incoming line voltage
Steam units and fan-powered units have electronics in them, and line voltage in parts of the county runs near the top of the legal range. It costs us ten minutes to check and it is the difference between a control board that lasts and one that does not.
Straight answers
Humidifier and dehumidifier questions
What does a whole house humidifier do?
A whole house humidifier adds moisture to the air moving through your ductwork, so every room gets treated instead of one bedroom with a tabletop unit in it. It mounts on or beside the furnace, takes water from a cold-water line, and runs on a humidistat that measures the house rather than the room. In a Wisconsin winter it is the difference between 18 percent indoor humidity and a comfortable 35 to 40.
Bypass, fan-powered or steam: which one do I need?
Most Sheboygan County homes are well served by a bypass or a fan-powered unit, and steam is for houses that need more than a pad can give. Choose bypass if the house is average-size and reasonably tight and there is room at the furnace for the loop. Choose fan-powered if the house is bigger or leakier, or the furnace is tucked into a closet with no room for a bypass duct. Choose steam if the house is large, the air stays dry with a pad unit, or the furnace runs so little that a pad never gets a chance to work.
Where does a whole house humidifier get its water?
It connects to a cold-water line near the furnace with a small valve. That is the only connection it needs besides low-voltage control wiring and, for steam units, a dedicated electrical circuit. If there is no cold-water line within reach of the unit, we will tell you at the quote.
Can a humidifier cause mold or window condensation?
Yes, if it is set too high for the weather, which is why the control matters more than the machine. Condensation on the inside of your windows is the signal you have gone past what the house can hold. We set units on an outdoor reset so the target drops automatically as it gets colder, typically toward 40 percent at 20 degrees out and down near 25 percent at 10 below. Held in that band, a humidifier makes a house less hospitable to dust mites and viruses, not more.
How often does the pad get changed?
Once every heating season, and sooner if your water is hard. A scaled pad stops absorbing water, so the unit runs, uses water and adds almost nothing to the air. Pad replacement is part of our fall maintenance visit, and if you are not on a plan it is worth putting a reminder in your phone for September.
What does a whole house dehumidifier do that my air conditioner does not?
It removes moisture without needing to cool the house, and it runs on its own humidistat rather than the thermostat. An air conditioner only dehumidifies while it is running, and a correctly sized one on a mild, damp 72 degree June day barely runs at all, which is exactly when a basement gets clammy. A ducted whole house dehumidifier targets a humidity set point directly, typically holding a basement at 50 percent.
Is a whole house dehumidifier better than the portable one in the basement?
It is quieter, it is not sitting in the middle of your floor, and it does not need emptying. A portable unit works, and if it is keeping your basement at 50 percent and you do not mind it, keep it. The case for the ducted version is that it treats the whole house, it is controlled automatically, and it is not a machine you have to remember about.
Can you add one to a furnace I already have?
Usually yes. Both humidifiers and dehumidifiers retrofit to existing ductwork, and we install them on systems we did not put in. The two things that decide it are whether there is physical room at the furnace and whether there is a cold-water line within reach. A house with hydronic or in-floor heat and no ducts is the exception, because there is no air stream to treat.
Will a humidifier let me turn the thermostat down?
Usually by a degree or two, because humid air at 68 feels like dry air at 70. That is the comfort mechanism, not a big efficiency claim, and we are not going to pretend it pays for the unit. The real reason to install one is that 18 percent indoor humidity is hard on your skin, your sinuses, your hardwood floors and your instruments.
Tell us what the house does in January.
Square footage, roughly what year it was built, and whether you have ducted heat. That is enough for us to tell you which size and type makes sense before we come out.
Or call us directly
(920) 564-2333Mon–Fri 7am–3pm. After hours, the same number reaches our on-call technician.