Adding a whole home humidifier to your home’s heating system helps you deal with dry air problems in your home. While these are great devices that can alleviate a lot of health and other issues that dry air can cause, they do require some level of maintenance. The most important task all homeowners must be sure to do is to change the humidifier filter on a regular basis.
3D Plumbing, Electric, Heating & Air provides a variety of services to make systems in your home work well including installation and service of whole home humidifiers. Our team of experienced Wichita plumbers and heating system technicians can install, repair and service whole home humidifiers.
Humidifiers keep the air in your home at nice and comfortable levels. They work great at maintaining proper humidity levels. But for it to work well, you need to tackle some pretty basic seasonal maintenance. And that main maintenance task is to replace the water panel.
First, let’s eliminate any confusion. The water panel is the same thing as the humidifier filter. Depending on who you talk to, you may hear it be referred to as either of these terms or even sometimes as the humidifier pad.
This filter (or water panel) is located right inside your home humidifier unit. It’s a thick rectangular pad that disperses moisture into your house.
You will immediately find it upon opening your humidifier. It is a large piece that takes up most of the space inside the unit.
Just like you need to change your air filter on a regular basis for your home’s heating and cooling systems to work properly, you need to change out your humidifier’s water panel.
The good news is, this is about as quick and easy as changing an air filter, and better yet - needs to be done less often!
Replace your water panel every year. You may want to schedule this maintenance task at the end of summer, well before you will turn your furnace on for the cold season.
If you do not change the water panel on a regular basis, it is prone to becoming clogged with dirt and particles that get into the system.
You do NOT want to let your humidifier’s filter get clogged. If you do, you may start seeing the negative effects in your home. First off with a decrease in the moisture. Your skin may start feeling dry or you have more issues with static.
Beyond making your home feel uncomfortable, a clogged humidifier filter can cause damage to your home. Water could back up, leading to basement flooding problems.
A humidifier not operating properly can hurt how well your home’s heating and cooling units work. A humidifier works with your home’s HVAC system. A clogged humidifier panel may cause the furnace fan to run more in its efforts to disperse moisture into the air.
Some people need to change their water panel more than once a year. Different factors can cause more particles to go through your humidifier, causing it to be blocked or clogged in less time.
If you think your humidifier is not keeping up with maintaining proper humidity levels, you should check its water panel. Remove the pad and inspect it. If it is covered in dirt or debris, go ahead and change it now, even if it’s not been a year since you last did.
Usually, you can easily see whether a water panel is dirty or has a scale build-up.
Try this test: press your finger on the water pad. If your finger goes right through it with the material crumbling, that is a clear sign it needs to be replaced.
Some other signals that a water panel needs to be replaced:
As we mentioned before, changing this unit’s filter is not all that different than changing your furnace filter. It could take as little as 5 minutes!
Different humidifier models can have different instructions for changing the panel, but typically these are the necessary steps:
If you have any problems with your humidifier water panel or are looking to have one installed in your home, contact us at 3D Plumbing, Electric, Heating & Air.
Call us at (316) 744-2326 or send us a message online.
3D Plumbing, Electric Heating & Air is a family-owned and operated business serving the Wichita area since 2012. With trained and experienced plumbers, electricians, and HVAC technicians, you can trust our licensed and qualified teams to deliver the home and business services you need.
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