Aprilaire - 700

I switched from three standalone humidifiers to an AprilAire 700 and it works so well that I haven’t had to run the standalone units anymore. It works really well and way less maintenance once you get it installed.

AprilAire 700 if you’re able to install one in your HVAC. Works way better than the standalone units.

Definitely go with the Aprilaire 700 series for that setup - they're solid and handle that square footage well. Since your heat pump runs most of the time you'll want one that doesn't need crazy high temps to work properly and Aprilaire nails that

Thank you for the advice. Is there a recommended evaporative humidifier? I already have aprilaire 700 in the hvac, but that only gets us to 40-45%. Hoping for 50-60% for the young kiddos. Could I replace the aprilaire with something “bigger”? Or wider to have supplemental humidifiers (like I have…but evaporative so I can use tap water). Trying a Canopy in our primary bedroom now, but it appears to lack the ability to get us to our desired humidity levels. It seems to hold around 45%.

EDIT: I missed it was a variable speed, so a bypass won't work very well. As much as it sucks, cutting into the side of the new coil to install a 700 or 720 is probably the best option other than steam. ~~Sounds like a good plan. Use rigid duct, an elbow, and a take-off for more bypass airflow (don't use flex duct).~~ Pipe to hot water. Get the one with the digital control and wire it for blower activation. I also strongly recommend you install the outdoor temp sensor so it can automatically adjust humidity with outside temp to avoid over humidification.

700 and 720 both pull their air from the plenum and put it back in the duct. The vents on the cover of the 700 are for the motor cooling, and the motor is mostly walled off with a plate from the humidifier airflow. There's a little air leakage through the vents, but most of the airflow is going in and out of the duct only.

That is a good question, the answer is yes. 720 is 1.75 GPH vs. 700 at 3 GPH. So you will get more heat gain from the hot water with a 700. The 720 fan pushes a little more CFM than 700 though, which helps it get a couple more GPD. Another hack you can do with a 700 (but not a 720) is replace the yellow flow orifice with the blue one to double the water flow rate to 6 GPH. That gets you more hot water if the yellow orifice wasn't enough (but that's getting to be a lot of hot water usage if it runs all day). You can also increase the thermostat on your water heater (max of 140ºF) and insulate the water line to the humidifier if it's more than a few feet from the water heater to maximize the heat. FYI the hot water thing doesn't work with tankless heaters because the flow rate is too low. Hopefully you have a standard tank water heater.

That is larger house, so you'll need an AprilAire 600 or 700 series humidifier. The type you get also depends on how much space you have on your furnace supply and return ducts. A fan-powered on the supply duct has a bit more output than a bypass humidifier. I would not get the Model 500, that is too small. The 500 is meant for apartments, condos, and small houses. The 600 is the larger size of basically the same thing. The 700 adds a fan for additional airflow.

Aprilaire 700 in a 3,000 sq ft home, it does ok, but we still need room humidifiers in the bedrooms. Steam humidifiers seem to work better, but sometimes too well, causing moisture issues. They use a lot of power too.

$1000 or so installed. Aprilaire 700 works great. Any HVAC company can install one but you'll need a hot water line nearby for them to tap into (make sure they do a quarter stop valve and NOT a saddle valve.)

April Air. Attached to furnace. Fantastic!

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.

If you own your own home, get the AprilAire that attaches to your furnace. Idk how much they cost but it would be cheapest in the long run.

If you want whole-house coverage, Aprilaire units connect to your HVAC and are the gold standard for set-it-and-forget-it. No daily maintenance, just annual checkups.