AprilAire 700 Whole-House Humidifier, Automatic Fan Powered Furnace Humidifier, Large Capacity Whole-House Humidifier for Homes up to 5,300 Sq. Ft., White

The product itself: 9/10. Humidifies like the beast that it is. No leaks, no issues with it out of the box. One note is the controller unit could be better with showing target humidity, and show relative outside temp. The installation instructions assume their target audience knows what they are doing and knows how to read technical diagrams, which by that standard they are pretty fine. For other audiences, they might struggle with the assumptions the install instructions make.The install:For context, I’m an average DIYer. This was one of the harder DIY projects I have done on my house. It’s plumbing, electrical, and HVAC all in one project. You will be cutting metal, running wires, and running water lines. You will likely be spending at least half of the units cost on materials to install it, especially if you prefer copper water lines. The adjacent install kit is a waste of money if you want good materials for this unit.I come with a couple of recommendations:* if you have an older house, get your attic insulation sorted to retain heat well before this humidifier project. If your furnace has to run A LOT to keep up with the warmth of your older house, even this humidifier may not be able to keep up to the humidity level you need.* Wire the controller to the return first. This can be done independent of installing the unit and doing the water line.* do not use the solenoid that comes with the unit. They are notorious for leaking and not lasting the lifetime of the unit. Spend the money to get a better setup that will last you longer.* I also highly recommend using the same waterline material as coming from your water heater (likely copper or pex).* set up your water line second. This can also be done independent of the unit being mounted to the air supply.* wear long sleeves while cutting the metal for mounting the unit. It’s very easy to cut yourself.If you’re looking for a DIY adventure and a way to improve your own skills, this product is quite the challenge.

So glad that I finally purchased a whole house humidifier. Our air quality is so much better now and we aren't getting static from everything we touch. The great thing about the 720 is that you don't need a bypass duct to I stall it. It works on the supply or return side. Plumbing hot water to the unit makes it more efficient as well.

I have a 10,600 square-foot home, and it has two gas furnaces and two heat pumps. During the winter the humidity hangs around 15%. Yes, you heard that correctly. My kids were constantly getting colds and I was having headaches, sore throats and dry skin. I was thinking about getting the 800 model because they always say steam humidifiers are more effective, but the 800 model only Humidifies up to 6000 ft.², and I wasn't about to buy two of them especially since installing them is about $2500 per unit. I did a bunch of research for about a week and settled on these 720 models. Since they said they could humidify up to 6200 ft.² I figured it was a good overlap of about 2000 ft.² to cover my entire home. I was right! The humidity in my home on all four levels is between 35% and 37% and that's after just one day of the install! Buy them!

I ordered the Humidifier with install kit, thinking the extra $75 for a ready to install kit would be a good value for the money. Well - it isn't. Here's a couple reasons why:-They tell you the preferred location for the humidistat is on the return duct, but only give you about 10 ft of 5-wire thermostat wire. There's NO way to run that neatly into the furnace cabinet/control board.-They give you a 25 ft roll of 1/4 OD PEX, but the ferrules in the saddle valve and humidifier solenoid port are brass (no-no for plastic tubing). Had to buy my own ferrules.-The humidifier comes with a saddle valve, but there's no way I'd risk breaking into my water heater's hot water output pipe with that thing....I ran PEX from my ManaBloc all the way to the humidifier, with a Sharkbite quarter-turn shutoff adapter.The only thing that ended up being useful from the install kit was the drain line, which I could have gotten for far less than $75....Save yourself the money and get a nice PEX crimper/cutter kit for that, instead..All told, the install wasn't too hard, and I ended up $600 into it after all was said and done - almost half of what the local HVAC companies were quoting for the job, and I've got a new set of tools/experience under my belt for the next job...As far as operation - this is a great unit, and it had an immediate effect on the dry air in our home this week!