AprilAire 800 Whole-House Steam Humidifier, Automatic Steam Humidifier, Large Capacity Whole-House Humidifier for Homes up to 10,300 Sq. Ft., White

I read many reviews on this both good and bad before purchasing. I spoke with a handyman about helping me install one, he said Aprilaire is a good brand. After comparing EVERYTHING, I decided on The Aprilaire 800, glad I did. Shipping was super quick. We live in Utah and winters are brutal, near zero humidity and my wife has a serious problem with low humidity.Overall, installing the unit was not complicated, but it took us 4 hours to run the electrical wire, and about 4 hours to install the system.Installing the ElectricalIt took us several hours to run the 220V line from the basement to the top floor, but we did it without tearing up the house. We had to consolidate two smaller breakers to free up a space for the new 220 breaker. We ran the wire from the break box into the ceiling and upstairs through the walls. From the floor in the furnace room (two floors up), we ran flex conduit from the floor directly into the unit and connected the wire through the conduit to the unit.Installing the Main UnitFirst, we mounted the unit to the wall and hooked up the 220 power.Next we tapped into the cold water feed above the water heater by installing a copper "T" and a new valve and connected the unit water feed.Next we tapped into the the drain line for the A/C by installing a PVC "T" and connected the unit drain line.Finally, we drilled a hole in the side of the furnace outflow duct above the furnace, and inserted and mounted the steam jet into the duct, then connected the steam line from the unit.Installing the ControllerYou have to install the humidistat controller on an inflow duct as that's where it measures the humidity. Luckily, there is an intake vent on the opposite side of the wall so we mounted the humidistat controller on the wall inside the furnace room about 6 feet from the furnace.We drilled a hole in the drywall and through the metal duct, and mounted the humidistat controller over the hole.Next, we connected the wiring from the humidistat controller to the main unit.Next, we connected the second wiring from the humidistat controller to the furnace. We had a little trouble figuring out how to connect the wiring from the controller to the furnace to get it to operate the way we wanted, but with a little persistence and two of us reading the manuals, we finally figured it out (we wanted the humidifier to operate the furnace fan by itself and independently instead of only operating when the furnace is running - there are several configurable operating options).Operating the UnitWe installed the filter/heater cartridge into the main and fired it up. The unit ran through the test cycle, filled with water, drained, made some noises and turned indicator lights on and off, but when it finished the test cycle, nothing happened. We thought we had done something wrong, but based on the way we had configured it, the Aprilaire unit will wait for an hour to start up the furnace fan unless it comes on by itself. You can preempt that by turning on the furnace fan manually for a few seconds. Once its running, it will control the fan itself.So you have to either wait for the furnace to run by itself in order to trigger the unit to operate, or you can force it on by turning on the furnace fan manually. We turned on the furnace fan which triggered the unit to start up, so we shut off the furnace fan, and the Aprilaire unit turned it back on by itself. Within less than a minute, we could feel some heat through the steam line so we knew it was working.My house is 2 stories about 2,800 ft sq. The temperature outside was about 10 F (-12 C), we keep our inside temperature at 78 F (25.5 C). The humidity was 4% before we turned on the system. The humidistat controller has a range from 0 to 7, we set it on 4. It took the system about 6 hours to bring the humidity up to 30% and we could feel the humidity in the house, it was great. The unit shut off at about 38% humidity, so we cranked it up to number 6. We ran the system all night, and when we woke up, it was 66%. It felt like Florida in mid-summer, oh yah!. Many of the windows were fogged up on the inside, some had water all over the window sills. OK, we went a little crazy, 66% is too high.We don't run the system at night after we go to bed anymore because the air is cool coming out of the ducts when it's just the humidity running, so we crank it up before bedtime to about 55%, and then shut it off. The humidity by morning is usually around 35% to 40% and we keep the house around 35% and 40% during the day until just before bed.We've been using this since September, it's now March (7 months). We couldn't be happier with this system. I bought a spare filter/heater cartridge in case ours stopped working, but so far, we have not used it. This thing automatically fills and purges the filter once in a while (not sure exactly how often it does it), but so far we've had this running pretty much all winter, and it has worked flawlessly.

Everything about this product is win. Incredibly well engineered and manufactured the design blows me away in its superiority over disgusting bypass humidifiers. The steam is injected directly into the plenum and circulated throughout the house in a super suble way. This is a top notch product to be installed only by the most advanced DIYer. Best left to a professional. That said I enjoyed the install thoroughly! It took me an entire Saturday but I took my time and did it right. A pro could have done it in much less time, made it look even better and would guarantee his work. There are many reasons this is healthier than the bypass evaporative method-look it up!

Don’t waste your time trying to save money with a bypass humidifier sold at hardware stores. If you have a 2-stage heat pump, the supply temps are too low for a bypass to produce enough evaporation. And bypass only runs with heat, so those won’t humidify if it’s dry and already warm in the house. This can also be installed in the return side, if you have a 2 zone system, or no room on the supply side at all. I installed this myself, but have some apprentice level experience with HVAC and electric. This unit has options for electric, 120, 208, 240 and 11amp or 16 amp. The more voltage, more amps, the higher the steam output. Of course you need wire and a breaker to match that power level. It comes with a basic controller, but I have an ecobee 4 thermostat. This specific Aprilaire unit needs 2 wires(the pins for one wire option are physically missing on this model #) . To wire the ecobee 4, I installed their PEK (power extender kit) to free up 1 wire, and disconnected the w2 (second stage aux heat). If second stage aux is needed, then a relay can be used instead. Also, ecobee defaults to 5% over humidify. I set that to 2, to reduce window sweat and runtime. Ecobee has 2 options, fixed humidity % and “frost control”. I’d recommend “frost control” and then use the “window efficiency” setting to adjust. Once set right, The ecobee will adjust % humidity to keep your windows from fogging, in all outdoor temps automatically. The included Aprilaire controller, will have to be adjusted frequently, to prevent window sweat. Ecobee 3’s are free from my power company now and the 4 just adds Alexa if you were wondering. They will control the Aprilaire the same.Not included in the kit is 10/2 wire, breaker, disconnect, wire clamps, wire nuts, water pipe (ice maker kit size), water hammer arrestor, nor an in-line water filter if you need one(well water). If you don’t have central air ducts, Aprilaire does make a stand alone kit. Basically this unit with a wall register/fan box. So you can humidify a house with baseboard heat.Two points to note, 1. the solenoid doesn’t have an arrestor, either use stainless braided ice maker line, or copper and a water hammer arrestor. Due to the design, it won’t start hammering until 24-36 hours after the Hvac guy leaves. 2. The first 24-36 hours are low output. This is a steam unit, but instead of a heater coil, it’s an electrolysis plate. Plates last longer between cleanings, but take time to build mineral conductivity necessary for steam. For the impatient You can add a pinch of table salt to the canister to jump start that process.From a water consumption estimate, it appears to use 20-25 gallons per day, maybe 12-17 as steam. Much better than bypass models. From an electric consumption, it’s high as expected, 240v 17amps. Past 24 hours Outdoor temp of 25F, runtime ~6 hours, $2.58. From my TED pro Energy meter. But you have to factor in the cost reduction of using less aux heat. I set the ecobee to not run aux heat unless it’s 3F off, since this humidifier makes it feel warmer. And I set the ecobee not to run aux heat unless stage 1 has run for an hour, and stage 2 for the second hour. Also, prevent aux heat over 40F outdoor temps. With this steam unit, the effect is feeling warm, the heat pump runs much longer on a lower stage, and saves some money overall. Gas is completely different than heat pumps, so different tuning would be used. With gas, you’d probably have a bypass humidifier, unless it’s a large leaky house. With gas, it runs less often so just make sure to set the fan to circulate 10-15 minutes every hour. Otherwise the humidity will be unbalanced. And you may want to have 60 seconds extra fan time after the steam stops.

Really happy we bought this humidifier! It instantly improved the humidity in our home. A technician wanted almost double the cost for just the unit alone vs what we paid for this one online. My husband took his time to install, but it wasn't particularly challenging. He does have an electrical background though. But there's plenty of videos to find online to walk you through the installation. Overall, we're very happy with the humidifier and the purchase process.

I installed this myself which took about 6 hours. Would not recommend to anyone who is not familiar wirh electrical, plumbing and HVAC, it's not for your average DIY'er.Worth every penny and minute though. In the winter my house typically sits in the mid 20% range. Low 30s with stand alone units all over the house. Since I turned this unit on I set it to 40-45% and my house has been 40-45% 24/hrs a day.I'm heating approx 6,000 square feet when accounting for basement and bonus room above 3 car garage, unit wired 240 and set to 16amps as opposed to 11. No more walking up with dry mouth or throat :)

In a Canadian household that usually shares a half dozen cold/flu every winter, our first winter with an Aprilaire 800 resulted in Zero colds or flu. First time in over 20 years here. Not a sniffle!The house is log and over 3000sq/ft, so it's dry as the desert from November to March. After the humidifier was turned on, between 40-50% humidity was continuously sustained. Meaning we could turn down the furnace thermostat too and save on gas bill.An impressive little machine. (My furnace guy was impressed too, grudgingly, as he usually installs a competitors product. Though the install Does need a licensed installer, not only for warranty, but it isn't a brainless installation. Significant labour savings can be found in strictly following the clear Installation instructions, and doing as much of the rough-ins as able for your installer. In my case, saved about 10 hours for him by roughing in plumbing, electrical and modifying the supply plenum to table specifications.)As we have the 800 unit cranked to full output 24/7 it does draw a Lot of water, which resulted in frequent water hammer noise. I tried some off the shelf water hammer arrestors, but they were completely ineffectual, even two of them installed in series wasn't enough. So I made an old school arrestor. Now there is Zero water hammer noise anymore. (DIY arrestor in photo circled in red. Make sure to install After water shut off valve and with a removable top cap for recharging of air.)I could rave about this machine at length, it's simply a great bit of engineering. Love it! Happy house.

The reason you are on this page is that you may have a larger property or because the usual evaporative humidifier might have fallen short of your expectations. Evaporation is essentially a passive process and is dependent on several uncontrollable factors so the dissatisfaction especially for larger properties is not surprising. As you might already know, this humidifier utilizes a boiler for steam generation which is not a passive process so this gives you more humidity to work with. This also means that you will actually end up utilizing the included cool-looking digital hygrometer turning the humidity up and down based on the weather and your requirements. Additionally, this device has the provision of running directly on the 220V power which provisions for 4X higher capacity on top of the active steam humidification process. I was sold at this point and I am sure you would be too.Having said the positives, the only negative besides the fact the boiler needs to be changed every 2-3 years, is that installation can be a challenge if you want to do that yourself or get this done through semi-professionals. I had this installed by someone I believed is a professional working for one of the national HVAC companies. and so did not expect the installation not to be any short of being perfect but that was not to be for the following reasons: (I am mentioning them hoping that some of you may benefit out of these details) 1. The steam outlet was not connected below the junction of all ducts but around the same height. 2. The hygrometer was set to the absolute max since the house had been without a humidifier for years (due to the absence of humidifiers under the previous owners).A week after the installation a visiting (unrelated) HVAC technician found the entire HVAC system leaking/sweating water. However, I turned the hygrometer setting down from 7 points to 5 points and the issue started to get better. But I was losing the full usable range which can potentially be an issue in the dryer seasons. Plus I might not be getting the full benefit of having paid for the badass humidifier.The HVAC technician was nice enough to give me all the tips that I needed and with some simple changes and refinements like placing the humidifier steam inlet lower, changing the supply from 110 to 220V, I was able to make all the necessary corrections to really get this going.Hopefully this unit will last me long and will not need too many boiler replacements. I also hope that the manufacturers continue to make these parts readily available. Lastly, I am also hoping that the boiler change is a simple swap that I will be able to perform myself. I am planning to keep this review live at least till the point I am all set with the device. So watch out for future updates guys....

This is an excellent product overall. Here are a few challenging points for your consideration. The door has close-open detector, which may not be properly engaged when screwing the door. The humidifier will then turn on as usual but it will not work and it will not display an error message for the door detector. This can be easily fixed. If you dismantle the boiler for maintenance, it is risky to re-use the bottom o-ring as it becomes flat with multiple heat and cooling cycles. You should have a wifi water leak detector as needed or a new o-ring if you purchase the correct one. The closing valve is noisy if your house has high water pressure, and this can become annoying at night. A pressure reducing valve installed in the line will fix this as a water hammer arrestor will be insufficient. The boiler needs to be replaced often due to the type of water in my area, replacement is a little expensive as cleaning the boiler is not easy. Still five stars, this product looks good, works well for a large house and I was very pleased that it can be integrated in our house temperature controller, therefore the manual controller is no longer required. I recommend this product.