Aprilaire - 500

Depends on what brands your getting quoted aprilaire is the king here and most others I've seen tend to junk out after a few years that's a fair price for the work being done

If you have central heating and air I HIGHLY recommend looking into a central humidifier especially if you are in a very dry area. Set and forget with auto water feeding and humidity setting with minimal (like 1x a year) maintenance. They are usually not super expensive to install either. I like the Aprilaire units.

Not sure on purifiers but for whole home humidifier we've had Aprilaire 500 on our Michigan furnace that we use over winter time. It has the controller where it uses an outdoor sensor to measure indoor vs outdoor temperature and adjusts itself automatically to prevent the windows from sweating (and growing mold). This is a flow-through style that is easy to retrofit to just about any type of gas forced air furnace.

Aprilaire whole home system is the way to go…

Mines worked flawless with basic maintenance for 5 years strong so🤷‍♂️

And no one cut any wires, it was an easy install along with a new blower and heating coil being installed at that same time.

Get a quote from Buric! They did our HVAC replacement a few years ago and we added an AprilAire humidifier at that time. They were great and other family have used them since and also had good things to say.

I have whole home water softener and then R/O in the kitchen. I use that water in my nursery humidifier. I also have a furnace-based Aprilaire humidifier for the main level furnace so I run three different humidifiers. Furnace, nursery and master bed. I live in Colorado and it’s really dry there. I still keep it at about 35-40% humidity in the winter.

That system is a piece of shit. Just Google the reviews or look on YouTube. Not only is it a piece of shit but they designed it so if you have it installed they will cut out your wires and you will not be able to replace it with a normal thermostat without getting expensive wires repulled through your walls.

The system uses a proprietary control panel with a touch screen that is not connect with the standard set of wires. They most definitely did cut the wires to interface the control panel at your furnace/air handler. There is no other way to wire it. Google install Aprilaire. They have a YT showing you exactly that.

Thank you for the non-zoomed in photos. I would get a Aprilaire Model 500, and install it on the right side of the return next to the condensate pump (keep drain fitting above pump, so install it up as far as you can). Then run the 6" bypass duct up the side and cut it in at the top right of your supply plenum. Put the control on the front left of the return plenum. Pipe to hot water. I think I see a water heater with PEX in the background, so you can use a SharkBite Tee Stop Valve to easily add the 1/4" supply line. Or tee it off and do a straight stop (depends on plumbing skills). A fan powered unit just isn't going to fit in this location. The combination of piping to hot water and using the digital control with blower activation should be sufficient with the Model 500 in your apartment. I strongly recommend installing the outdoor temp sensor if you can manage it.

Digital so you have blower activation and outdoor temperature sensor. The manual controls are sort of like the stone ages to me.