AprilAire 500 12-gal. Whole-House Small Bypass Evaporative Humidifier with Automatic Digital Control for up to 3,600 sq. ft. + AprilAire Model 5844 Humidifier Installation Kit

Humidifier works great! Installed myself taking my time, I broke the project into 4 phases (days) and about 2 hours planning and picking up what I needed at the store. This is a time consuming project, but if you are comfortable with other home improvements such as adding outlets, lights, switches, fixing pluming, etc...this will be a job you can do yourself.Phase one I spent about 4 hours mounting the humidifier and bypass ductwork. I purchased 6" duct from my local home improvement store. I used a 3/8" drill bit to drill to start an initial hole then used quality tin cutters to cut the square humidifier opening into my plenum and a 6" round hole for my bypass duct into my cold air return. I already have a set of left, center and right tin cutters, I switched between left/right cutters when appropriate to make clean cuts. I used 3/4" sheet metal screws with hex heads for everything. I added true metal tape around seams. Metal foil tape is for taping duct work, which is not the same as "ducttape" which is the more common tape everyone thinks of.Phase 2 I spent about an hour (which hopefully most folks will not have to do) adding a 2 gang metal box at the ceiling above the furnace to mount the 24V transformer (included with the apriaire). I added this to the circuit that powers the furnace. The instrufions tell you not to wire the transformer within the furnace 24v circuits, but it is completely ok and acceptable to wire the 110V transformer to the actual "home" 110V circuit to the furnace. I added a switch in my box so in the summer months I can turn off the transformer when I have the humidifier off. If you are not comfortable with home electrical wiring and you do not have a place to mount your 24V transformer to a 110V source, then plan on either hiring an HVAC or Electrician to add a similar box for your situation.Phase 3 I spent about an hour running a 1/4" water line from a hot water source to the Humidifier. The only thing I needed to purchase was 10' of 1/4" copper pipe. I used a couple pieces of pipe strap to hold the piping in place for my situation. A flare wrench is necessary to tighten these fittings correctly.Phase 4 I spent about 3 hours running thermostat wires as instructed in the kit. I used a stepping drill bit to drill the 3/4" hole needed for the humidistat then mounted the humidistat with two sheet metal screws, as others mentioned you need to use at least 3/4" long sheet metal screws for this mounting. I used one run of 18-5 thermostat wire to go between the humidistat and the furnace. I also got a really long run of 18-2 thermostat and door bell wire, most of it was for the outside sensor, some was used to connect the transformer, hunidifier water line solenoid and humidistat together.The system works well. I like the options to be able to let it run on its own or only when the furnace is running. I also like the outside temperature feature, basically you set this humidistat to where you want it and forget it and it will keep the humidity at a level that is no too excessive. If you over humidify your home, you will get water condensation on the windows which you do not want. The humidistat is simple to use and the bright blue display is easy to read. It would be great if it also reported the outside temperature, but it's only job is to report the relative humidity, which it does.I was told as a tip to use electrical twist caps at the humidifier water line solenoid and at the outside temperature sensor. These are serviceable parts, by using twist wire caps as apposed to butt connectors or soldering it will made it easier to replace these parts if they were ever to fail.Update:I only use the humidifier from about late December through Early March. I was warned last year that if the humidifier is always working you can over humidify the home which encourages mold growth in the duct work.The home feels warmer inside with the humidifier, even though the thermostat set at the same temperature.As for the humidifier setting itself, I have it set at 2 for our home. I did initially have it set to 4 which created way too much humidity in our home.

First off this was a no brainers to buy a whole home system vs a portable that only does one room for half the amount. Yes you will spend double to triple what a small humidifier cost but this thing will control your whole house easily vs somthing that struggles to do one room.I purchased this humidity control system a couple months ago for how dry it gets in the winter and with a newborn who has delicate skin. It's been running without any issued and keeps our house at a constant 50% humidity. Not only does keeping moisture in the air through the winter improve/maintain health, it also said to help reduce the risk of sids.Installation was very start forward until I got to the wiring, which is the "most difficult" part of the instalation... it wasn't to hard to do, I watched a couple YouTube videos and relooked at the instruction and found that it was very painless and easy to wire.I have my system attached to our cold air return and pipe in warm air from the heat duct. This setup works great for me and Easily and quickly added moisture to our 2500 Sq ft house. I had the automated fan control turned on, but turned it off after realizing that just running room temp air over the filter pad wasn't really effective. Since turning it off, the system only pumps water while the furnace is running and that works great! No issues at all.I would recommend buying the installation kit for an extra 70 bucks... it will give you everything you need ezcept tin snips... although in my case the 3 foot 6 inch duct pipe it came with wasn't long enough for my exact set up, so I also ordered a 6 foot 6 inch flexible duct and a hose clamp. Attaching the flex duct to the heat duct off the furnace was easy with som tin snips and the male attachment it comes with, but ran into a little more difficulty with attaching it to the system and the pipe and system were both 6 inches, I used duct tape to hold it and that works perfectly fine... although an additional piece to fit the two together may be helpful, certainly not needed!Additionally keep in mind relative humidity and humidity are different. Our aprilaire display says 34% but our indoor humidity is 50%Hope this information treats you well!