You have a few other options. I'm just a homeowner, handy enough to get into trouble, and these are my experiences with humidifiers. First of all, they are a royal pain. Particularly if you have lots of deposits in your water. The cheap humidifiers are the drum type, which use an evaporator pad on a revolving drum. Have to be cleaned regularly, and I mean cleaned by using a calcium remover like CLR. Without good maintenance, they can get hung up, overflow, and burn out the motor. I replaced one of these with a similar model and it lasted several more years. I had also tried a spray type, can't remember the brand name, but it sprays a fine mist into the plentum. Never worked well for me, got the bottom of the furnace wet all the time. Next time, I did some more research. Didn't go with Aprilaire as it still uses a pad. I got one called Desert Spring. It's similar to a revolving drum type except that it uses a series of disks instead of a pad. It still needs to be cleaned (de-scaled) regularly depending on your water. You can buy an in-line water filter, but I can't imagine how that would work with my water. I think that this one is a little sturdier and a better design than the old drums. I believe it cost around $200, I installed it. I still have the cleaning issues, but I like it better than the drums. My two cents, Steve

We have AprilAir 700 piped to hot water it works absolutely fine. Make sure either use advance tstat, or move AprilAir control to the main area, most I have seen installed in a basement with sensor right next to it - pointless. Start from setting like 30%. https://www.aprilaire.com/whole-house-products/humidifier/model-700 865 steams are good, but do you really need this? And the maintenance ... steam rods must be replaced every year. IMHO AprilAir 700 are very easy to install and fool proof.

the place we ordered from doesn't keep it in stock. We've got the sheet from where it was shipped from, so we plan to call them. There's 10 other places that sell it, tho, w/in a couple few hours of here, if need be, and I don't know if they all get them thru the place ours came from or I would assume there are more warehouses or wherever. I'd think we'd have it all taken care of by May, so I think we'll be good. And if not, we'll figure it out then! Nice we don't have a big house-it was like 4 and a partial boxes to do the pantry.

With or without a humidifier, you might have comfort problems Nobody installs a whole-house humidifier unless they're having a problem of some kind. Many people absolutely can't stand having dry skin during winter. It can actually be painful, and a humidifier probably will help your skin from getting too dry. https://www.cooling-heating.net/ In other homes, the air gets so dry that wood furniture cracks and gaps form between floorboards. Pianos go out of tune. Everything just feels off-kilter (or off key). Super-low humidity just isn't fun. Any time your indoor relative humidity dips into the middle-20% range, it's a good idea to increase it. The thing is, humidifiers have problems of their own: They might cause mold to grow in your home. This happens more often than you might think. Since humidity sticks to cold surfaces and your home contains many cold surfaces during winter, the environment is often perfect for fuzzy, black stuff to show up. You might not see the mold: While humidifier-induced mold sometimes clings to ceilings and walls, the mold that results from your humidifier isn't always visible. It might be inside your walls or - and this is pretty common - lining the inside of your ducts. The "moldy ducts" scenario is more likely if you have uninsulated ducts or a lot of your ductwork resides in an unconditioned area (like your attic). It's cold in your attic, so moisture accumulates on the ducts when your humidifier is running. Then mold starts to grow there. Mold, as you well know, can really do a number on indoor air quality. It's bad to breathe it in. And if you've got asthma, a moldy environment can actually be dangerous. The bottom line is that you don't want to grow mold in your home, but you don't want your air to be too dry either. What can you do to increase indoor humidity without increasing the risk of mold growth? Air sealing keeps dry air out How did the air in your home get so dry in the first place? The answer is simple: Cold air from the outdoors infiltrated your home through gaps and cracks in the building envelope. Seal off the points of entry for that dry air, and you'll increase your relative humidity. If you do a good job, you won't need a humidifier at all. Think about it like this: Warm air migrates to colder environments. When you turn on the heat, the hot air generated by your furnace eventually seeps out of your home to the outdoors. To maintain a pressure balance inside a structure, the warm air that leaves your home is continuously replaced by cool air that gets in. This is air infiltration. It's the draft you feel under your front door. It's the cold air that seeps in around your windows. Most of all, it's the cold air that sneaks in through the plumbing, electrical, and ductwork penetrations between your first floor and your crawl space. When you seal off these sources of air leakage, you achieve two things: You close off the "escape hatch" by which warm air leaves your home. You prevent air infiltration from the outdoors, which keeps your indoor humidity from getting too low. Stated more simply, you should strongly consider air sealing your home before purchasing a whole-house humidifier. By doing so, you'll be in a great position to mitigate uncomfortable dryness and avoid all of the problems associated with humidifiers. The best way to discover your biggest sources of air leakage is via a blower door test. That way, you can determine both the air infiltration rate and identify the biggest sources of leakage. If you do opt for a humidifier… Air sealing should always be your first course of action to alleviate problems caused by dry indoor air. That said, there are circumstances when you might want a humidifier anyway. For example, maybe your household activities don't generate enough humidity to make you comfortable, even after you've air sealed your home. You need a humidifier to even things out, so to speak. Whatever your reasons for installing a whole-house humidifier, these best practices will help you avoid potential mold and indoor air quality issues: Get a steam humidifier:Steam humidifiers boil water on their own. Unlike bypass humidifiers, which "steal" a little hot air from your supply duct to generate water vapor, steam models are more efficient. Basically, you get more humidity during a shorter run time. Bypass models also dump hot air right back into your return plenum, which can increase the temperature of incoming air and cause your system to overheat. A proper installation can mitigate this, but it's still a risk. Only run the humidifier when the furnace is on: If your ducts are in an unconditioned space (most people's ducts are), running the humidifier while the ducts are cold increases your risk of mold growth.