The Benefits of Steam Injection Humidification | Plumber Sherwood Park
Welcome back to the Hinse Brothers Mechanical YouTube channel. My name is Trevor, and this is Adrian. He is one of the brothers of Hinse Brothers Mechanical, and he’s also the main service guy and sales person that you will talk to if you hire them, if you get them involved in any of your projects, whether that be air conditioning, furnace service, furnace repair, installation RVs, HRVs Plumbing, you name it. He’s the guy you’re gonna talk to.
The topic of our discussion today is steam injection humidification system benefits and advantages. And we were talking just before we started rolling on this video, it was like, I think I want steam humidification in the house because man, oh man. Just better breathing, better comfort levels. You know, not, not so much static electricity, but we’re gonna get into the benefits today. But af but soon after, I’m just going to give you a quote here, Helen Keller said, life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all, and I believe that is very much true.
If you, life is boring, if you’re bored with life, man, oh man, there’s a whole lot more living you gotta be doing. Next thing here we’ve got is a stat for you. The most significant annual demand for air conditioners from 2012 to 2018 was always China. 40 million units a year. 40 million TC units. Holy man. That’s a lot of ac It is a lot.
Well, the sheer number of people in China, I, I can see it happening, but I’ll tell you here in Alberta, or actually the Northern states and most of Canada people are really getting on the ac the idea of getting AC in their home, it’s really becoming important. It’s not just the furnace these days, it’s in the summertime we need to be comfortable as well. Yeah. Yeah. I think most people are coming along to the realization that, Hey, you know what?
I can, you know, get an air conditioner in my home, or I can get a mini split system in and make it a little bit more comfortable for me to live and sleep at night and so forth. So I think that’s, that’s just the trend, you know, we, we like feeling comfortable. If we’re not, then it’s no good. So let’s jump into some things here.
First question we’ve got is, how do steam humidifiers work?
So we install steam injection humidifiers that actually use submersed electrodes. Oh. So what they are is there’s a, a steam canister built into this equipment and electricity charges, these electrodes produces steam, which transfers it through like a steam insulated tube to your duct work. Okay. And is mounted directly to your duct work. There’s a dispersion tube inside the duct work that actually releases the steam.
Oh, wow. So it can actually call upon your furnace blower motor to turn on when you need more humidification in your home. So it’s not just gonna turn on when your furnace does, it can actually control your furnace Oh, wow. Or control your blower so that you’re humidifying when you need it, not just when the furnace is running. That is pretty awesome. So that’s much more efficient than the, the other style where it’s just air blowing past some water on a, on a mesh screen, basically.
Yeah. The way in an effort to keep up the humidity in your home on the conventional style flow through or bypass system nowadays water trickles through like a waterfall, down a panel, and air bypasses from the return through to your or sorry, from your supply duct into your return and moving air past that waterfall trying to simulate or give you a little bit of humidification in your home.
So all the while water is just going constantly down the drain. Right? That’s right. Yeah. That’s that’s why I think the steam humidification would be the way to go. But we’re gonna get into the next question here. You can educate us on this.
How does a steam humidifier safeguard humidity reliability?
Well, it may sound complicated, but actually a steam humidifier’s function is very simplistic. Okay. So there’s very few components. There’s, you’ve got the housing, you’ve got the unit, the electricity, and you’ve got the steam canister. So with that steam canister that has to be cleaned out and every couple of months during the humidification season. So in the usually fall, winter, early spring is when we’re gonna be using this, and it’ll actually tell you when it needs to be replaced.
So usually annually it’ll replace the canister and every couple of months you clean it out to maintain its function, keep it running properly and efficiently. Wow. But other than that, it’s virtually, you don’t have to do anything to keep it working properly, kind of set it and forget it kinda thing. That’s right. That’s great. I love that.
Question number three is, does STEAM provide a more hygienic atmosphere in the home?
Well, it does because it actually allows you to keep the tolerance of steam in your home, like the level of steam quite accurate. Hmm. So we don’t want to have too much humidity and we don’t want to have too little. Usually between 30 and 50 relative humid humidity is good in the home. Okay. When it’s really cold outside, you want to keep it on the lower end of that spectrum so you’re not freezing the windows.
Right. You’re not getting that condensation all the time. But having that accurate level of humidity is actually helping your, if you’ve got wooden window sills, if you’ve got hardwood floors, it’s helping with your breathing, definitely lowering the issues with allergies, dust mites, those types of things. And bacteria Okay. In the air. Yeah.
So a lot of benefits to having steam rather than just the, the regular humid humids stat now, or the humidifier. ’cause I’ve used, you know, the, the standard type of humidifiers, you know, pretty much all the time, and it doesn’t seem like they provide a lot of, of humidification, not a lot of moisture goes into the air from those things. I don’t know if the, the efficiency is of ’em, but it seems that steam would probably be a better way to, to go about that.
Next question on the list here is how does a steam humidifier affect home comfort?
So again, because it’s ability to maintain, like if you’ve got the proper controller, like a smart thermostat tied into the steam humidifier, you can keep a 1% tolerance, like plus or minus 1% humidity. Which optimizes your control of that helping you sleep by not drying out your cavities, you know, with your, your nasal cavities, your mouth.
I’m able to, I’ve got a steam humidifier in my own home and I’m able to sleep with my mouth closed, I can breathe through my nose, you know, which which doesn’t dry me out as much and actually helps with snoring. Okay. And it really does help. Wow. So it helps with your health, helps with your sleeping, helps with your comfort level.
So a lot of different benefits we can get from steam-ification, I think everyone should get one of these things, not to mention If your skin is cracking dry or itchy if your lips are always chapped in the wintertime, you know, it’s really gonna benefit you to have this accurate level of humidity in your home. Yeah. And like you said earlier, I mean, we’re gonna be using the thing three quarters of the year. Yeah, almost every season we’re, we’re gonna be needing it, except for maybe a brief moment in the summertime. Yeah. But other than that, we need this thing all the time.
Next question is, how much maintenance does a whole house steam humidifier require?
So the maintenance is actually quite low. What I’ll do typically is I’ll, when I’m done using it in the, in the springtime, I’ll take the canister out, I’ll rinse it and shake out any scale because it’s actually taking out the scale.
So you get a buildup of different line calcium, line calcium, all those types of buildup will be in there. You shake it out, you rinse it, be ready for next year. So next year comes around and the winter time you take out the, the old canister and you utilize it till the end of its life. Yeah. Meanwhile, you should keep a, an added, or sorry, a second canister. Okay. Handy.
That way you can just change it out when required. Right. So the system, if you start hearing a gurgle or something like that, you may need to rinse it out or you drain it every couple of months just to maintain its function. And then the system will actually tell you change the canister when it’s time to change it. Wow. That’s pretty, pretty remarkable. And are these parts like readily available?
Can you find them easy enough? Like are they some special order thing or how does that work? Absolutely. They’re readily available. You can contact us, we can order ’em up for you, they’re always available. Okay. But it’s good to maintain, keep one on hand, an extra one on hand, just because it’s, when it’s done, it’s done. It’s time for a new one. Yeah. When it’s done, it’s open. There’s no bringing it back.
The next question we’ve got for you is, how is water consumption affected?
So with the standard bypass or flow through type, it’s a constant flow of water coming through. So you can imagine in the wintertime when the humidity level isn’t where you want it ’cause it’s not working that efficiently, every time your furnace is running, which is almost all the time in the winter, yeah.
You’re actually pouring water down the drain. It’s flowing down this panel and straight through the drain tube into the like floor drain and where you have it draining into. Yeah.
With the steam humidifier, it’s only going to use water that it needs to produce the steam required. And so it’s very efficient that it I can change the humidity in my home, like within an hour I can go, you know, five, sometimes 10% change if I wanted to. Right. So it, it, it works quite quickly and you’re reducing your usage of water. It does use a little bit of power which is offset by the comfort levels that you, you are maintaining. Yeah. I mean, when you have more humidity in the air, you don’t have to, it doesn’t feel like it’s as cold or as warm as, as it normally would be.
Right. like I noticed in the wintertime when, you know, say the average temperature should be around 20 degrees Celsius, we’re having to put it up 22 degrees, 23 degrees just to have, have a certain level of, of warmth or comfort. But I think with more humidity, that 20 degree range would probably be very sufficient. That’s how you feel better. So you using less gas in your furnaces, having to work not as hard, and you’ve got a better humidity to let in the house. Would you agree? I would agree. Awesome.
Next question we’ve got is, how does a steam humidifier affect my breathing?
So, like I talked about earlier when the air is really dry, my nose is constantly congested it’s cracking. I have a hard time breathing through my nose. I have to breathe through my mouth, and then they’re so dry, I actually dry out most of my body just from breathing through my mouth.
Right. Especially when I’m sleeping, I’m getting a sore throat, I’m snoring. All these things are happening. So I’ve also got asthma and I’ve noticed since I put the steam humidifier in, maintaining that level of comfort. Next thing is, what is the humidity level accuracy that can be achieved by a steam humidifier?
So like I said earlier, we can maintain with the proper controller plus or minus 1%. Like it’s actually pretty phenomenal. Keep in mind too, to get an accurate humidity, reading requires pretty good equipment, right? So there are different humid stats you can get to, to check. But, you know, I’ve had a couple that I’ve bought, you know, in a, a box store, whatever, and I have one in, in this room and three feet late, three feet over, I’ve got another one and the other room and they’re 10% off.
You know, so maintaining accuracy with those types of things, like you’re not really reading it properly. So it’s good to invest in that thermostat to go with it, to be able to control it and to monitor it effectively. Effectively. Right. So getting the right equipment will help in maintaining it so that you can maintain that 1% difference, plus or minus, which is amazing. I think that’s great.
Alright, so the next question is, how can Hinse Brothers help people out with a new steam humidifier?
Well, if you simply give us a call, send us an email, send us a text, we can actually set up a free and home consult. We’ll come over, we will check out your system, have a look at the electrical panel, make sure you’ve got room in the equipment, see what we need to do to install this equipment.
So typically we want to install it on your supply duct. If there’s no room, we can actually install it on the return duct. We just have to make sure we maintain like a 12 foot distance from your heat exchanger. Okay. So we can maximize the distribution of steam in the air so it mixes properly before it enters the furnace.
Okay. So when we install these, we make sure that it’s done to manufacture specifications. Just ensuring it, it runs properly for you. That’s right. And, you know, best thing to do folks, anything related to heating, cooling ventilation, plumbing, you should always contact a professional just because it, it avoids the incorrect installation or improper use of the equipment. So having a professional come in like Adrian and his team to install such items, I think it would just benefit you over time.
‘Cause Then you don’t have, you know, malfunctions or things breaking when they shouldn’t be breaking because you’ve in improperly installed it or not getting the proper use out of it. So always consult the professionals and especially call Adrian at Hinse Brothers Mechanical. Thanks so much for joining us on this video. If You’all liked it give us a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel as well as leave some comments below. If there’s any questions that you might have about humidification or any other HVAC issues we’d be glad to help you out with that. Thanks so much. Thank you. See you next time.