Bought a humidifier. The thermostat is clunky. Too cheap?

[steiconi]

Sounds like you've maybe resolved the problem.

We're in the desert, and have a whole-house humidifier. Of course it is more humid near the machine, but the house is comfortable.
If we wanted more even coverage, I would put a fan by the humidifier, to move the damper air out into the rest of the house.
If the heat or AC is on, a floor vent near the humidifier moves the air.

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by riffwraith

Yes, sometimes simpler is better. Completely agree. But I want to set it and forget it. I don't want to have to keep going back into the room every couple of hours to manually turn the humidifier on and off.

Sounds as if you have a potential solution.

Just to follow up on the reply above...if you plug the humidifier into an appliance/lamp timer you don't need to turn the unit on or off by hand. The timer does that for you! You create simple on/off cycles to trigger the timer, plug the timer into a wall socket and forget it. The timer will repeat the cycles and turn the humidifier on and off without any attention from you...as long as there's power anyway . It's exactly the same thing you'd do with a lamp. Easy peasy and you can change the cycle settings any time you wish (if your area has drier or more humid seasons for example).

[riffwraith]

Originally Posted by Parnassia

Sounds as if you have a potential solution.

Just to follow up on the reply above...if you plug the humidifier into an appliance/lamp timer you don't need to turn the unit on or off by hand. The timer does that for you! You create simple on/off cycles to trigger the timer, plug the timer into a wall socket and forget it. The timer will repeat the cycles and turn the humidifier on and off without any attention from you...as long as there's power anyway . It's exactly the same thing you'd do with a lamp. Easy peasy and you can change the cycle settings any time you wish (if your area has drier or more humid seasons for example).

But the timer turns the humidifier on and off based on time - I need it to turn the humidifier on and off based on RH.

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by riffwraith

But the timer turns the humidifier on and off based on time - I need it to turn the humidifier on and off based on RH.

Sigh...the timer can still work but it will take some trial and error on your part to figure out how to make it work. You'll need a watch, a hygrometer, and the humidifier.

Scenario: Your room naturally sits at let's say 20% RH without any type of humidifier at all. Let's say you prefer the room to hover around 40%.

Turn the humidifier ON and note the time.
You also start watching the hygrometer readings and continue watching until the room registers 40%. Turn the humidifier OFF.
Note the time. Let's say the elapsed time was 1 hour.
Voila! Now you know how long your timer cycles need to be under normal circumstances: 1 hour.

The next step is to figure out how often the humidifier needs to cycle in order to maintain that higher RH level over time.

Note the time you turned the humidifier OFF.
Then keep track of how long it takes the room to drop back down to that 20% RH level.
Let's say it takes 3 hours.
Voila! Now you have a good idea how long it takes the room to get too dry again. That sets the time interval between humidifier cycles.

It is more work to figure this out but it can be done with relatively simple tools.

[riffwraith]

Sigh.....


Thanks for the rec, but that only works if the RH stays the same, or close. Mine is all over the place.