White dust in the house

It all depends on a couple of factors.

First is the type of humidifier your using. Portable or whole house connected to the furnace. Steam, ultrasonic or filter. Your unit's instructions is the best guide as to how often you need to clean it and this can vary from every day to once a heating season.

My recommendation is to watch and clean the unit as soon as you see scale forming. Then in the future, reduce this to just before you see scale forming.

The second is the type of water you are using. Hard tap water is the worst and usually will require every day for small portable steam or ultrasonic units to once a week for filter models. For central whole house humidifiers, once a month (perhaps as little as every two weeks if your water is really hard, >10 grains hardness). There is no fixed formula for this, the idea is to perform on-going, preventive maintenance.

Soft or conditioned water will contain the same amount of minerals as hard, but the softener has replaced the calcium minerals with sodium minerals. (Sodium bicarbonate actually).The result is the humidifier will still form scale but it much easier to remove. With soft water scale, you can just break up the scale with your fingers and the filters can just be submerged in clean water and the salt scale will re-dissolve.

Third, with distilled water, you may only need to clean any of these units annually. (No minerals to for scale).

With any filter humidifier, consider using a commercial bactericide to prevent the growth of bacteria when the water sits for long periods (>14 days). Not so critical with soft water as the salt will retard the growth of bacteria, but very important with hard or distilled water. Don't use this product in ultrasonic or steam humidifiers as it will be carried into the air along with the water vapor, and can be considered as toxic.

With hard water, use a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water to dissolve the scale buildup. This works best if done on a regular basis. If left go too long, it become impossible to clean properly. You need only use regular water when using soft or distilled water in your humidifier.

Its probably just from the minerals in your water. If so you should be fine although it does make a bit of a mess around the house. If the white dust bothers you, fill your Hankscraft 240 with distillers water rather than tap water and the problem will go away.

Im not going to recomend a humidifier because I need one myself and have not went shopping yet.

I would like to opinionate an explination on the white haze.

The humidifier is putting moisture in the air -water is much much heavier than the air - water is much much heavier than dust particles also.

therefore my theory is that the moisture is combining with the dust or whatever is already in the air and then eventually settling. perhaps if this is correct you may want to do some checking around in your home or furnace ducking or even furnace filter. The dust could even be coming from a little pin hole in your clothes dryer exhaust hose.

You need to replace you humidifier pad. The water scales up on the pad and this is the white powdery substance you are getting.

If you chose to install this with an auxilary transformer. Turn the main power off to the furnace. Mount the transformer on the handi box to the furnace or inside the furnace cabinet. Wire the primary wires from the transformer to the main power coming into the furnace. Connect black to black and white to white. Wire the secondary side of the transformer in "series" with a #50 relay, the humidistat, the solenoid valve and back to the transformer. Determine which wire powers the blower motor for the heating speed. Clamp the #50 relay to the wire.
Good luck
HVAC Teacher

Peice of cake: You run the white to sail switch the to common 2. Yrun thr re to humistat switch then to the white on the control board or conact us www.airenergyexperts.net

A concern is minerals in the water. Impeller and ultrasonic designs send these minerals into the air. If the water in your area contains a lot of minerals, you will notice them as dust. The EPA does not issue health warnings about minerals in the air, but does recommend using low-mineral water (such as distilled water) in your humidifier. Many ultrasonic models feature a demineralization cartridge that filters minerals out of the water to prevent the dust.

Good Luck

Your V5100N ultrasonic humidifier generates a fine mist by vibrating the water at an exremely high speed. The water doesn't actually evaporate until after the water mist is in the air. As the tiny water droplets evaporate in the air, the calcium and other minerals settle on your floors and furniture.

Humidifiers that evaporate the water in a filter wick, or with heat, do not generate dust because the water evaporates inside the unit and the calcium is trapped inside.

You can avoid the dust problem with your humidifier by using distilled water. Distilled water is available in most stores that sell bottled water in gallons...but be sure to choose "distilled" water, not "purified" water. Try the distilled water in your steam iron also...if you have one. It will last longer.

The Problem is minerals in the water. Impeller and ultrasonic designs send these minerals into the air. If the water in your area contains a lot of minerals, you will notice them as dust. The EPA does not issue health warnings about minerals in the air, but does recommend using low-mineral water (such as distilled water) in your humidifier. Many ultrasonic models feature a demineralization cartridge that filters minerals out of the water to prevent the dust.

Good Luck.

Suggest you try using distilled water in the Humidifier in the baby's room. If your seeing that much dust you must have heavy hard water in your borough, suggest you replace the filter more often & or Demineralization Cartrid if your not already doing so.
Hard water is tough on many things in your home. Washing clothing can produce dark & light spots, some rust in color. Build up of rust & minerals through out the water lines in home. Bad taste. Build up of white stains in glasses & the list goes on.
The best choice would be a filtering system to remove most if not all hard water as it enters your water lines. Many companies near you can help you remove this problem. Listed below is one such company.
http://www.raindancewatersystems.com/maxicure.html

CPSC Issues Alert About Care Of Room Humidifiers
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/5046.html

Goog luck & Best Regards.

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