Aprilaire600 Humidifier Automatic

This actually took me almost 12 hours to install, so be prepared. Granted I did have to knock down a dividing wall with drywall on it in order to be able to access the part of my ducting which would fit this beast. For my installation, I used sheet metal snips in order to cut the 2 large holes in my ducts; I tried a Dremel tool, and a SawzAll as well, but they just made a huge racket and did not make very precise cuts. Hooking up the copper supply line for the water was much easier than I had expected, and the compression fittings and little ball things that go around the tube on both ends were included, although 1 was outside of any bags so I had to search for it in a panic, but it was in the box. My house is 1500 square feet, but due to other reviews, I thought I needed this higher capacity unit; now that it is in, I think I could have been fine with the 500 model. I had this hooked up at around 10PM and turned it on high (7), by the next morning at 5AM the humidity in my house was up to 38%. By the time I got home from work, it was all the way to 48%. I did hook up the exterior temperature sensor, and it has kept the humidity adjusted extremely well in the house, and depending on how cold it has been, the humidity in the house varies from 30% to 50% with not even a drip of condensation on my low-grade double hung glass windows with bad insulation around them. I did hook this up to my hot water line as was recommended by Aprilaire, and this might have something to do with how effective this unit has been. You might save a bit of money by running cold instead, but the unit will also need to run more often in order to maintain the same humidity. This was running quite a bit even with the hot water on the first day, but after that, it's running much less.For those people who don't think this unit comes with a template; it's not well marked, but the actual instruction sheet is the template. If you trace around the outside of this sheet and cut just inside the lines, you will have a perfect hole. It is extremely important to make sure you have the unit mounted perfectly level in order to have the water panel becoming evenly saturated. The materials I needed in order to complete this install were:- Sheet Metal Snips, drill with a 5/16" hex bit for screwing sheet metal screws in and 3/4" spade bit for drilling the hole for humidistat controller and transformer- Foil Tape (to seal the joints), ($15)- Fireblock Caulk (to seal the ducts to the unit, and the 6" duct to the main duct), ($6)- 24" length Round Duct with 6" diameter ($8)- 10ft 1/2" ID vinyl tubing for the water drain ($5)- 10ft 1/4" copper tubing for water supply ($10)- 8" zipties ($3)- Wire nuts ($4)- 25 1" #10 self tapping sheet metal screws ($3)- 50ft 18/2 thermostat wire for outdoor temp sensor and wiring solenoid to controller ($8)- 25ft 18/5 thermostat wire for wiring controller to the furnace board ($9)- 2 x 90° 6" round metal duct elbows ($16)- 1 x 6" round metal duct coupler (has tabs to hold it to the flat duct and makes it easy to fit your elbow into the duct) ($5)So all told, if you already have the tools this will run you roughly $90 in materials on top of the price of this unit. If I had known this information beforehand, it would have saved me a considerable amount of money. They do sell a kit for $100 with shipping on amazon, but you might not have enough wire or sheet metal screws, and wouldn't get the foil tape or special high temp caulk from what I've read.

It's a great product and it works extremely well when set to full automatic. The outdoor temperature sensor needs to be installed for automatic mode for proper relative humidity and to avoid window condensation. Yeah it takes some time to install it properly but well worth it. When it's set to automatic it will actually kick on your blower periodically even without a call for heat to get an accurate check of the humidity levels and stay on if they are low. The automatic mode helps tremendously after the heat runs and it needs to stay on for a bit to keep the levels accurate. I also found this setup to be useful in reducing cold spots in the house and to help maintain even temperatures kind of like a 2-stage furnace would. With a flip of a switch it can be set to manual and will only run if there is a call for heat and humidity is required. If you're going to spend the time to install one of these, I wouldn't settle for a unit that is not automatic. The 24vac transformer that was sent with the unit was pretty cheap; I tried to loosen one of the terminals and it broke the lead. Not worth a phone call so I just picked up one at the hardware store for $13. If you plan on using this for automatic purposes, then the transformer should be powered with constant power. I ran power down from the furnace power switch to the blower compartment where I mounted the transformer. That's also nice because when you shut down the furnace via the switch it also shuts down the humidifier and adds protection with the onboard furnace fuse. You will want to wire the transformer at the switch and not from any wires or furnace electronics after the switch (excluding a designed HUM accessory power lead). Like many others my furnace's Honeywell circuit board is equipped with a HUM accessory power lead and on my unit it is 120V so don't think you can bypass the use of a transformer if that's the case. But if your board is similar to mine the HUM power lead will only work if you plan on using it in manual mode as it's only powered when there is a call for heat; it is not powered when there is only a call for the blower or no call at all. Obviously the unit will be more efficient when supplied with heated air; as will be the case most of the time. But there are several studies that show a sufficient amount of humidity will be applied by just the blower moving ambient air through the unit. The manual does state that when set to automatic mode then the unit should be supplied with hot water and in general that is a good practice for the MOST efficient way to evaporate water and help keep the impurities from building up over time. But I couldn't justify the usage of energy that it takes to make that water hot and watch it go down the drain. Some studies show that the benefit is insignificant in supplying hot water over cold water. It's going to be up to you but I couldn't do it and the unit still works very well when supplied with cold water. Hope this helps some of you out in the decision process and I posted a few pictures of the install.