Humidifer Can Save On Heating Costs?

A humidifier can save on heating costs, but I'm not sure if the money spent on the electric for the humidifier would be worth it. You could always put a pan of water near the furnace, but if you pay for water then it still might not be worth it. I'm not really sure the going rates of water how much electric your humidifier will use. Not to mention humidity can cause issues itself.

I often do something similar where I turn on the shower for about 15 minutes on max heat so that the humidity in my apartment goes up. It makes everything warm and toasty for a couple hours.

 

How does a humidifier save on costs? I haven't heard this before, but I am willing to try it if it works!

Do you mean the humidifier produces its own heat? Or is it because moisture in the air holds heat better?

 

Really? You turn the shower on to make your apartment humidity go up, and that makes things stay warm and toasty for hours? I've never thought of doing this type of thing. Kind of interesting though.

The part of my apartment where my bathroom is tends to get cold during the winter, even though I have a wall heater close by. I rarely use the wall heater because to me, it doesn't produce much heat. Maybe I'll use the shower method and see what happens.

 

I feel kind of ill-informed. I thought a humidifier was just something that you use in a 'dry' room in order to keep your skin moist. This is the first that I've heard about one being able to save on heating costs. Oh well, as the elders say, 'you live, you learn.'

I have a couple of wall heaters in my apartment. One of them I rarely use, but on the other one I always keep a can of water so that when the heater comes on, there is moisture in the air. I do that because when I was growing up, I saw my mother do it. That's kind of the extent of my humidifier experience so far.

 

The humidifier will increase the moisture in the air which retains heat in the air. Also it decreases static electricity which is probably one of the main reasons a humidifier is used in the first place. Something to be said about the use of a humidifier is while it might save on heat to an extent, the power use of the humidifier or the water that's used to fill it can equal out the saving in power.

Specifically a home humidifier. Remember that in the use of humidifying water, electricity and making sure you don't have furniture or other things that are damaged by the increase in humidity.

 

How does the moisture affect your stuff? I've heard of people in very humid, swampy climates having mildewed books and moldy furniture.

 

There are central heating and cooling systems which also come in with built in humidifiers - though I've never heard about the humidifier part being used to lower your heating bills. I suppose if you had one of these it would make sense to run that humidifier instead of a separate electric humidifier, since you are killing two birds with one stone with the energy being used to heat your place also being used to humidify the air.

When I lived in apartments with electric floor board heaters, but also in apartments with gas central heating, the air would often get really dry and it would begin to irritate my throat and eyes, especially at night. I was constantly having to get up and grab a glass of water. However I would only run my humidifier when I was really sick, and that added irritation made it worse. Electric humidifiers can actually make you sick if you don't clean them frequently, and/or if you run them too much and make your place too damp.

I've also lived in apartments that were heated via a central boiler system - and although these didn't dry out the air at all, they created another problem - mold. My place was constantly damp when the heat kicked on from these, and black mold would form around a lot of my windows, which I regularly had to clean with bleach.

 

I have wondered this aswell!

 

If it was a “ dehumidifier “ rather than a “ humidifier “ then yes I would agree that using the former to keep the humidity at an optimal level both during the winter and the summer months - very definitely does save on energy costs and quite a considerable amount too.

I am however not entirely convinced that using a humidifier would actually result in any kind of savings.

Especially when bearing in mind - not only the problems associated with high humidity levels such as - damage to furnishings, paint, wood and particularly door and window frames as well as the health hazards of mildew and mold growth - all of which could be costly to replace or repair - but also the fact - that as it requires over four times more energy to heat water than it does air - meaning that it generally costs way more to heat moist air than it does dry air - logically speaking adding extra moisture to the air by way of a humidifier - would in theory be more likely to increase costs rather than reduce them.

 

Humidifiers are negligible at best. you might save on the amount of time a furnace runs because the air feels warmer and is less dry. Certainly this is good for health reasons, but a simple hundred dollar humidifier can supply the same results as a huge full home humidifier. Also there's maintenance and upkeep of anything you chose. I would say get a humidifier to try to apply comfort to a room more then save a couple bucks, the opportunity to save that cash just isn't there in the short term and unless you go 20 years with one humidifier you're not going to save that much in the long term.