My Aprilaire system could not keep up with my home's humidity needs, but it sure did run through the hot water. With this pad, there's much more moisture transfer to the air supply. Now instead of most of the hot water going down the drain, it goes into the air (where I want it to go).
I won't even buy the standard water pad anymore. This BestAir version is the only one I will buy. In fact, if somebody gave me a stack of standard pads I would throw those away and still buy this one. The savings in hot water cost alone would justify that. With the BestAir, I get the increased comfort I am really after.
I have verified the huge performance increase by using humidity meters. Of course, the numbers vary with the amount of heating required. But here's an example of a sort of side by side test I ran in 2010. The outside temperature was consistently around zero degrees for several days (with the forecast, I saw this coming so decided to run tests).
I have a Trane heat pump system, with variable speed blower to provide a constant (but minimal) flow of air when heat or AC isn't running. This constant flow means my Aprilaire is always running also (I removed Aprilaire's original controls, which essentially render the system pointless, and installed my own system and yes I am an engineer with a significant controls background).
With the standard pad, the humidity dropped to 37%. That is well below the recommended minimum. Even the morning warmup furnace blast, which gives you the best humidification with this system, couldn't nudge it much past 40.
I changed to the BestAir before going to bed, noting a humidity of 38%. I got up just before the furnace kicked on and the humidity was at 41%. After the initial warmup blast, the humidity was 45%. It dropped back to 42% under normal low demand.
Then I reversed the situation by installing the standard pad, and the previous condition resumed. I already knew how the standard pad ran from previous, pre-test conditions of the previous couple of years. And that's what I got upon going back to it. So then I reversed again, and again got the better results with the BestAir. Even over several days, these results were consistent.
Then it warmed up outside, and the humidity hit 47%. I put the old pad back in, and the humidity slowly dropped to 39%. Changed pads, and it went up again.
I use supplemental humidifiers to get the humidity up to 48% to 52% (50% is recommended), but can stay above the low-H danger zone using just the Aprilaire but only if it has this BestAir pad installed.
If you have an Aprilaire system, this BestAir pad is the only one you should be using.
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I have a larger house, but built in 2008 so I expected humidity to never be an issue. However, my house really struggled with the Michigan winters. After replacing my usual wire mesh drip filter with this paper pad style, I'm better able to maintain a 30% humidity level. Before I was having problems keeping it at 20%!It does say to change them more often, so we'll see. But they are around the same price as the mesh so really it's not that bad.
If you need more humidity, try these before you spend more money on alternatives!
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