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other than buying expensive equipment, are there any effective ways of injecting some moisture in to the air? the first real cold wave hit here and i am dying already re: sinuses/dry eyes, etc....
i was just thinking, would a 3-4' diameter "kiddie pool", with gravel added to increase evaporation, work?
i know it would look weird but i am willing to try it

Move to England and get a dehumidifier!

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the humidity here is brutally high in the summer, whenever it hits 75F and above- it is often unbearable....but for much of the year, it is brutally low, certainly december-march. it is a harsh climate. having forced air(natural gas) heat aggravates the situation

Buy a humidifier. They are relatively cheap. You can pick one up at walmart for probably $30. Here is a link to some on amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=mh_70 ... 7031378011

Adding a few medium sized house plants will help add some moisture to the air. The down side is you will need to water them, but the upshot is that you will get lots of free oxygen!
Plants lose a lot of water out of their leaves. Its part of how they get water up the stem. Anyway, a friend of mine who builds had to store a bunch of plants in his shop for a few weeks. He found that he had to run a dehumidifier while the plants were in his shop or the RH would get too high to build. Adding just a few should help with adding humidity to the room. A humidifier is cheaper than several plants though.

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PMoMC

My mother used a big humidifier in the wintertime when we were kids. Using it left white dust all over.... it was the minerals settling out of the water vapor. So she got rid of the humidifier, and started putting aluminum pie pans next to the floor vents. The white minerals stayed in the pan, and when it got cruddy enough, she pitched the pan in the trash, and refilled a new one. She used a plastic garden watering can with the sprinkler head removed to refill the pans every other day. Worked pretty well, as I remember.

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Forced air natural gas furnaces make it very easy to attach a home humidifier to and the cost is less than $100. I live in a very dry winter climate and my home RH stays consistently around 40%. Home Depot has what you are looking for.

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Doug

Don't let fear or common sense stop you from trying to build something

Even most of the cheap humidifiers these days have filters in them which get most of the minerals and such out of the water preventing the sediment issue. I have a cheap walmart one that goes through 2-3 gallons of water a day, has a filter and I have no issues with white stuff getting on anything. Big plus was that it only cost about $30.

when i was a kid my folks' house had a portable humidifier(on wheels)....far as i remember, it was a tank of water that had a spongey belt that would slowly turn, with the bottom portion submerged in the reservoir, and a fan to blow on the section of belt that rose out of the water
i do have about 10 small plants and i plan on having a bunch more eventually. i never really thought about them as humidifiers but that makes perfect sense...
i'm currently doing basically a gut rehab so i don't want too much around to collect dust. the drywall and spackle dust isn't helping.
guess i'll shop around for a humidifier, thanks for the suggestions

Pot of boiling water on the stove?
Keep misting a few wet towels hung up to dry in the room?

$200 for an Air-o-Swiss, ya right

Me hate the air from a furnace humidifier so during the winter months me stretch a cloths line off the upstairs balcony and don't use the dryer.

Don't laugh, works great. And since me fired the wife way back long time ago...so what if me laundry is hanging down in the living room.

At least there is moisture in the joint.


blessings

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I did that myself recently... very disappointed in the results. My house is 1500 sf, the unit is rated for 2500. But even in the summer, I keep it running full blast, and I can't consistently get above 30%. I live in Colorado, where it's pretty dry, but dang. Winter is going to be bad for RH in my house.