Kevin's Coffee Break: Honeywell HE220A Whole House Humidifier Repair

Being a homeowner requires skill in many different areas. For today's problem, I became a furnace Repairman and a plumber.

I installed a Honeywell HE220A Whole House Humidifier 8 years ago to address regular winter illness my children were having due to a very dry house. I have to replace the humidifier filter at the start of winter. It is a metal filter designed to allow warm water to flow over it while the furnace blows hot air. The hot air causes the water to evaporate and blow throughout the house.

The amount of humidity distributed is controlled by a dial on the controller. The higher I turn the dial, the longer the water pours into the humidifier and the more humidity the house receives.

A day after changing the filter, I returned to make sure everything was OK. I discovered that no water was moving through the humidifier! I checked hose coming out of the valve to make sure it wasn't clogged and I found the valve was not allowing water to flow through it.

The valve was not opening, so, I dug out the multimeter. The label on the valve said it was looking for 24vac (volts AC), so, I went looking for 24VAC throughout the electrical flow.

I also checked the transformer that feeds electricity from the main power to the controller. I found 24 voltz everywhere I tested.

The valve was getting 24 volts, but wasn't working. So, the problem must be the valve! But new valves were around $100! And if I paid to have someone install it for me? I would be several hundred dollars into the repair. The answer was DIY! I started by finding the saddle valve. The Saddle valve is where the humidifier's water pipe pierced the main water pipe in order to get a water supply. In my case, the saddle valve pierced the hot water pipe coming out of the hot water tank. That makes sense to me: I would want to spray hot water into my furnace, not cold water, because hot water would evaporate faster and wouldn't try to cool down the air flow. In theory, if you turn the saddle valve clockwise, it is supposed to shut off the water flow to the humidifier. Instead, when I turned clockwise the saddle valve started leaking and spraying water.

I couldn't shut off the water supply so I came up with another plan. First, I disconnected the water supply from the valve.

Next, I disconnected the drain hose from the bottom of the humidifier and I stuck the water pipe into the drain hose.

With the water disconnected, I was able to remove the valve. I made sure the control knob was in the OFF position before removing the wire nuts and disconnecting the valve electrically, and then I unscrewed the valve from the base of the humidifier.

With the valve removed, the next step was to disassemble it. The way these solenoid valve (Kip U147112) is that a magnet manipulates a plunger. When the magnet is engaged, the plunger raises allowing water to flow. Then the magnet is not engaged, a spring pushes the plunger down to block the water flow. Sometimes those plungers can get stuck either open or closed. Or sometimes the plunger will leak, but that wasn't my problem. No water was passing through the valve.

I disassembled the valve but could not get the plunger off the solenoid. So, I cleaned everything I could access the best that I could and reassembled it.

I put everything back together with low expectations that I made any difference. But to my surprise? Water started flowing into the filter!

Apparently I was successful in getting the valve to open, but it wouldn't close now! So much water was coming through that it was overflowing into a bucket I had left out just in case. If the valve doesn't close, I would be supplying a nonstop flow of hot water all year long.

I immediately suspected I knew why the valve wasn't closing. I thought I didn't get the nut on the top of the valve tight enough, so, I tightened it up. That fixed it! The valve was now able to open and close.

However, my work still wasn't done.When the valve was open, the humidifier was overflowing and pouring water into my catch bucket. I traced the drain hose and found a sediment clog that was restricting the flow of water.