Honeywell - HE300A1005/U (TrueEASE Advanced Fan-Powered Evaporative Humidifier)

I'm working on the same issue with a client. If you have two HVAC units, the the fan assist humidifiers can split the load. They are rated generally for 3000sqft each. The steam is high maintenance and will cost to operate way more than let's say a Honeywell HE300. The price for the steam units are reasonable. The steam will hydrate the house quickly. You can try the HE300 and leave it operate and it may raise the humidity to a reasonable level. You may have to adjust your HRV so it's not pulling as much air from the house to compensate.

Honeywell he 300. Our third one. Moved twice. Never an issue. The current time is 5 years. Change pads twice a year. One house we had a steam one. Nightmare.

I have the Honeywell evaporative humidifier. Most of it can go in the dishwasher. The biggest pain (which is only a pain to remember, not to actually do), is to flip the filter daily to make sure it doesn’t dry out in places. 

Skip the misting ones. They can really mess up your air quality, and kind of alarmingly so. You want a regular evaporative one, with the wick. The $60 Honeywell one is fantastic. We leave it running basically 24/7 on medium, cranking up to high at night. It’s about a dollar of electricity a month. It claims to have a UV bulb that helps prevent mold growth. Idk how true that is, but we haven’t had any problems. A tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide every now and again.

We went through like 4 mist humidifiers before switching to an evaporative one. Much more reliable and they don't leave that annoying residue everywhere.

It's worth spending the extra few dollars for an OEM filter. I need to change the Honeywell filter mid season once, and do a weekly cleaning of the bowl, but it's mostly maintenance free.

I would likely recommend an evaporative humidifier, not a warm mist one. The mist ones have a lot of problems, such as being more prone to bacteria growth and harder to clean. They also try to add more moisture than the air can actually hold, resulting in mineral condensation (white dust) appearing everywhere over time, especially if you have hard water. Aircare makes a decent console-style evap humidifier with a decent tank size and is pretty easy to clean. I used one for years until we moved to a house with a humidifier on the furnace. Now I use a smaller Honeywell evaporative humidifier upstairs only. It gets filled each evening, runs constantly all winter, and cleaned each weekend. I went through about half a dozen of those warm mist ones before converting. It didn't matter the brand, how much I treated the water of cleaned them, they were all pieces of junk that lasted only 1-2 years. Crane ones were probably the worst.

Nothing on the carpet. I kept it on a plastic tub lid, just in case but never found water. The Honeywell one i just put on a dresser. Never used one with an air purifier. I wouldn't put them next to each other since they are both ducking in air, but I dont think there would be problems