DIY Humidifier

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Ok, so last fall I had too much humidity (cool, damp summer), and now I don't have enough. Life in an older house in Manitoba....

So - one of the things I have done in the past is to reclaim the warm, moist air from the clothes dryer in winter. In my previous house, I had simply cut a bunch of slots in a 5 gallon pail, lined it with a piece of bulk furnace filter material and fed the dryer hose in through a hole in the lid. That worked, but was in the way and not easy to maintain.

This year, I bought a special valve for redirecting the warm, moist air back into the house. To trap the lint dust, I initially tried a water pail sold for that purpose - it's a small (2-3 litre) bucket that you fill with water. The hose is attached to the top and blows over the water - which is supposed to trap the lint dust. I wasn't impressed.

I liked the furnace filter idea better.

So, with the help of a friend who had way better wood working tools than I do, I built this fancy box that holds a 20x20x1 furnace filter.

In house dryer vent filter 1

In the winter I'll set the valve to redirect air into the house, and in summer it gets set to send the hot air outside.

In house dryer vent filter 1

When the filter gets full, its easy to slide out and replace.

Update (1/19/10): Humidity on laundry day jumped from just below 50% (we have had a mild spell which tends to not dry the house out as much) to nearly 60% by end of day. It has since (24 hours later) fallen to about 55%.

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