Whole House Humidifier Plumbing

[soonerce]

Hello, I am currently working on installing a whole house humidifier and am having trouble figuring out how to plumb the waterline to it.

The closest existing line is in my water heater closet, and the line I need to cut a tee into is 3/4-inch PEX. The humidifier calls for 1/4-inch O.D. copper. I would also like to put a shutoff valve right after I cut into the existing PEX.

The nice lady at Home Depot put together a package of fittings totalling over $90 and it included 6 sharkbite connections (2 to tie into the existing PEX, 2 between the sharkbite tee and the valve, then two reducing it down again to 1/4"). If at all possible I would like to eliminate as many of these connections as possible, as I have heard they tend to leak over time.

I have read that some people have used a fitting like the Watts P-667, which does it all, except that it is made for existing 1/2" PEX and I have 3/4".

Can anyone help me figure out a more streamlined solution? Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[frodo]

install the valve on a tee

 

[Margot thomas]

I guess what you could do is put that all together and install a valve to your humidifier, you may have to look at for example other things are running into your tubing like any cables, wires, PBC tubing or pretty much any other type of connection in order to make sure that everything you will be installing look good and well in order to complete the installation process.

Also, make sure that the area you are going to be working at does not contain any stains from oxidized potassium as it is highly volatile and can blow up your humidifier and injure you badly, trust me, it is a big explosion, an uncle of mine died this way so... again, no oxidized potassium.

How ever, I really recommend you call a professional on this one, humidifiers can be very very tricky some times, and if you are working on a humidifier for you baby well, it gets special because babies can't handle to much humidity at night.

 

[fixitron]

FWIW, if you need a humidifier, then your house is losing a lot of heat in winter by air leakage. If you sealed air leaks to reduce the air leakage, you would not need a humidifier and you would save heating fuel.