Aprilaire 500 Humidifier, 24V Whole House Humidifier w/ Auto Digital Control Bypass Damper .5 Gallons/ hour by Aprilaire

… you are a professional HVAC or electrician person installing this will void your warranty the outside of the box is clearly labeled I did not know this I returned it immediately because I called local HVAC people I even called ones that carried this particular product all of them refused to install an Amazon purchase version of this product and I had to buy the item from them at a much higher mark up so I feel it’s very misleading to put it on Amazon unless you clearly tell people that a professional must install it and they probably won’t

I purchased and installed the unit. It worked and within days had my furnaced replaced. All the HVAC company did was remove the connection at the new furnace and reinstall onto the new. They also checked the wiring to make sure it was correct. It was tested at that time and I witnessed it working. About two weeks or so later, I noticed the humidity in the house dropping and slowly got to about 22%. I removed the humidifier cover and noticed the water tube dripped about a drop every few seconds. It should have a steady water stream. I had the correct voltage at the solenoid so I know the electrical portion was fine. I noticed I still had my 20 year old humidifier sitting in a box in the basement because I forgot to throw it out. I removed the old solenoid from it and installed it on the new unit and it worked! I thought great, I will just contact customer service at April Aire and they will send me a new part.
After 55 minutes on hold, I was told that I have three (3) choices to get the part replaced. 1. Send the part in, they will test it and if defective, send me a new one and that would take about 3 weeks. 2. They said to contact the HVAC company to come and inspect it to make sure THEY installed it correctly and run some tests to make sure its the solenoid (the 20 year old one worked) and if so, they will replace it. The issue here is they didn’t provide the unit so I would have to pay them for this service. It would cost me more than a brand new unit. 3. Buy a new solenoid through one of their retail sellers but I would be out that money. AprilAire doesn’t deal direct with the consumer so they cant reimburse my money.

Just wanted to share my review of this product after the install.

INSTALL
Like others have stated this is a fairly difficult install for your everyday DIYer. I my my self did not have any problems and it took me about 4-5 hours I would guess. I am not an HVAC professional, however I am an Industrial electromechanical technician, so I do similar work for a living The install of the unit itself is pretty straight forward, the instructions are pretty decent for mounting and running the bypass duct work, I think most DIYers could figure this out. The trickier part is the wiring. If you are NOT familiar with reading a wiring and have a basic understanding of electric wiring principals I DO NOT recommend installing this yourself.There are no instructions or explanations on how to wire the unit, only the simple wiring diagram. When I get some time I plan to make a YouTube video tutorial on how to complete the wiring. Side note: I wired mine for Automatic Mode with blower activation.

OPERATION
I have had the unit installed for about a week now and I love it. When I fired it up for the first time, I was a little nervous the first few hours. It ran pretty much non-stop. It did add about 12-15 %RH in the first hour or so but it would drop just as fast. What I didn’t realize is that everything in the home is very dry and it takes quite awhile to absorb that moisture into the woodwork, furniture, carpet, etc. So as a forewarning it could take up to a week for the unit to settle down and run normally. Currently in Iowa it is about 25 degrees and I would say the unit only runs a couple times a day to keep a RH of about 42-45%.I have verified with another RH sensor that the controller is withing 1-3% RH, which I think is acceptable. Keep in mind that if you are running in automatic mode with the outdoor temp sensor the colder the outside temps the lower the indoor RH will be. This is explained in detail in the manual.

OVERALL
Overall I would absolutely recommend this product. The install is fairly simple and the price is right. I purchased this on amazon for $140 and spent just under $100 in extra materials to complete. (there is an install kit sold on amazon for $90) The unit seems to run efficiently and keeps the house comfortable. Aprilaire is much more complex than their Honeywell competitor, but for less upfront money and a more efficient operation, with much more constant control, this product wins. My only complaint is the warranty for the DIYer. There is none. Which i can understand based on some the hack job instructional YouTube videos I have seen. However, feel I did a cleaner, more quality job myself than I could have hired out for a few hundred bucks. Just a tip though for the person who is a little scared of installing this yourself, I have seen some ads in the back of the newspaper for HVAC company’s that are Aprilaire dealers that sometimes run sales. You might be able to get a good deal and have a similar product installed for cheap and get the 5 year warranty.

Hope this helps someone out, and keep an eye out for my tutorial on the wiring side!

Everything needed for the installation came with the product. The wire, tubing and ductwork require on site measurement. I’m happy with what was supplied.