Replace that Plastic Water Line on Your Humidifier!

Here's a little project you may want to look into. It's very inexpensive, fairly easy to do, and could save you a lot of money and headaches down the road. I learned the hard way. Saving a couple of dollars led to a very expensive and unexpected service call.

Check the water supply line on your furnace's humidifier. If you're not sure where it is, look at your water heater. There are two copper pipes connected to the top of it. There will be a thin water line fastened to one of those copper pipes, and it will lead to the humidifier, which is usually attached to one of the ducts near the furnace.

It's possible that the thin line may not be near the water heater. You need to look along the water pipes for a valve with a smaller water line coming out of it leading to the humidifier.

Now examine that small water line. Is it bronze and made of copper, just like the main pipes connected to the water heater? If so, you may as well stop reading. Well, wait a second. Give it a quick once-over to make sure it's not leaking. Then you can stop reading. You're all set.

However, if that thin tube is another color and made of plastic, you should definitely replace it with copper, and here's why. Those cheap plastic lines can break easily, and they usually do at the worst possible time. When they fail, anything can happen, from a flooded furnace room to an out-of-commission furnace or water heater, or any combination.

As I said, I learned the hard way. On a frigid night in January, the house began getting far too cold. Upon checking the furnace, I discovered the plastic humidifier tube had burst, spewing water everywhere. It was a mess, but that wasn't the only problem.

Water from the broken line had sprayed onto an electrical box on the furnace, knocking out the furnace completely. Needless to say, obtaining emergency furnace repair at 11:00 on a Saturday night with the temperature below zero is not a bargain. As it turns out the technician had a replacement part with him and was able to get the furnace running. I parted with some dollars, but I had little choice. That's not the time for comparison shopping, and my knowledge of how furnaces operate is limited at best.