Aprilaire - 800 Whole-House Steam Humidifier
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Based on 1 year's data from Jan 28, 2026 How it works
Liked most:
64
18
"never had a single issue ever with it."
"Refreshing to see that action camera can actually be reliable and not crash and overheat all the time ... OMG it's just sooo much more reliable ... After using action 4 for 1 year, I've had 0 crashes and 0 overheating issues."
"The DJI Action 1 ran the whole trip, no issues, always powered up, always worked."
11
2
"steam humidification will absolutely blow anything out of the water. It's just much, much better and completely water efficent."
"steam humidification will absolutely blow anything out of the water. It's just much, much better and completely water efficent."
"After losing around 1% per hour down to 10-15% with gas furnaces running, I can now have the whole house around 35-40% with the Aprilaire 800 on a 5 ton unit for the largest area of the house."
76
17
"My home is single story with 5 bedroom with 506 square meters house.30 plus connected devices.dont have any buffering issue at my place to play xbox ps5 watch live 4k channels."
"After losing around 1% per hour down to 10-15% with gas furnaces running, I can now have the whole house around 35-40% with the Aprilaire 800 on a 5 ton unit for the largest area of the house."
"After 6 years of using it for all my security cameras and IoT it’s basically pointless to run CAT cable throughout a house in today’s world. ... I have 3 wireless cameras on my deck, 2 on my garage, one on my door, 2 inside my home. ... Including the other random 70 devices throughout my basement (movie room), office (2nd floor) in a 3500sqft home and have literally zero issues, from stream live security streams, streaming movies, gaming doesn’t matter"
11
1
"The maintenance I put in takes literally 3 minutes."
"Maintenance consists of a replacement canister once a year, like $100. However, it's pretty much maintenance-free otherwise."
"Maintenance consists of a replacement canister once a year, like $100. However, it's pretty much maintenance-free otherwise."
2
0
"if you really want humidity control, you want the 800 series. ... evaporative humidifiers are basically limited to when your heat is running. otherwise, it's just a huge waste of water. ... 70 F degree ambient temperature air will pick up very little water from the pad. so you're spending electricity to run the fan and pouring water down the drain. heated air holds significant amounts of moisture."
"If you want ultimate humidity control, look into the Aprilaire 800 or the Aprilaire 800 with fan pack."
"If you want ultimate humidity control, look into the Aprilaire 800 or the Aprilaire 800 with fan pack."
Disliked most:
1
4
"they designed it so if you have it installed they will cut out your wires and you will not be able to replace it with a normal thermostat without getting expensive wires repulled through your walls. ... The system uses a proprietary control panel with a touch screen that is not connect with the standard set of wires. They most definitely did cut the wires to interface the control panel at your furnace/air handler. There is no other way to wire it."
"it was not cheap ... basically the installation cost was equal to the cost of the hardware"
"Drawbacks of the 800 is its expensive to install"
4
3
"The unit I bought said around 1300 continuous watts. Bullshit. This thing regularly pulls 1800 for lengths of time."
"expensive to run (electric bill)"
"The think I don't like is they really tank your electric bill"
0
1
"they designed it so if you have it installed they will cut out your wires and you will not be able to replace it with a normal thermostat without getting expensive wires repulled through your walls. ... The system uses a proprietary control panel with a touch screen that is not connect with the standard set of wires. They most definitely did cut the wires to interface the control panel at your furnace/air handler. There is no other way to wire it."
0
1
"60 percent humidity in the dead of winter is insanely high. You would need a large whole-home steam unit to get to that point and you would have condensation dripping down your windows and, eventually, mold growth issues. ... If you want higher than that, you would need something like an Aprilaire 800, but I do not recommend this."
0
1
"expensive to run (electric bill)"
"expensive to maintain"
Additional_Shower925 1.0I have a 5500 sq ft home and have been struggling with plug-in, fan based humidifiers that just don’t keep he humidity high enough. Hardwood floors are all cracking and filling up 20+ gallons across 3 humidifiers is a major hassle. The wife has cracking skin, the paint is coming apart. I just self-installed an Aprilaire 800 steam unit. It takes a little effort to arrange the power, water & drainage, but definitely worth it. After losing around 1% per hour down to 10-15% with gas furnaces running, I can now have the whole house around 35-40% with the Aprilaire 800 on a 5 ton unit for the largest area of the house. Floor boards closed up on first day. Power use is TBD. The install guide from Aprilaire is not great, but you can figure out with enough reading. I ordered a lot of extra parts for my horizontally mounted plenum and I wired it to a Nest 3rd Gen learning thermostat rather than the included humidistat with the Aprilaire. Extras 1. 240V isolation switch 2. Drain pan (used one for instant hot water) 3. 90-290Q fan relay for Google Nest as humidistat 4. Aprilaire drain trap assembly for plenum lower than steam unit (# 4028) 5. 1/4” anti-hammer valve for water line 6. 1/4” isolation valve to cut off water 7. 1/2” knockout clamps for electrical 8. LOTS of PVC for dedicated drains to outside 9. 20A main panel breaker 10. 18/8 copper cable to add humidifier (*) wire to Nest 11. 18 gauge wire to hook up relay 12. AWG 16 push-on crimp connectors for relay hookups 13. 4x2x8ft, 1/2x12x36 plywood, screws, 4x2 hangers for standalone solid mount separate to plenum Total cost of accessories was around $300. Plumber to install drainage was $663, 120ft electrical circuit professionally installed $450, Aprilaire 800 unit new $969 from Amazon. All in cost just over $2k and a few hours of effort. Well worth it! Good luck on your install.
Derf_the_Taco 1.0Aprilair 800 is the best on the market
jwasilko 1.0We've had the aprilaire 800 steam humidifier for 12+ years now and really like it. It is expensive to run, but it keeps the house at our desired humidity.
kiddo459 1.0The Aprilaire 800 is an option, however, it’s gonna be more expensive. The unit itself is more expensive and it requires a lot more maintenance than a 700. And it uses quite a bit of electricity when running. Great performance though.
Kindly_Individual167 1.0I installed my own Aprilaire 800 No gurgle, works great. Depending on water quality- tank electrodes may need to be replaced more frequent
lannid39 1.0It’s definitely possible. I’d recommend a aprilare 800. It’d have to be mounted on the supply side of the furnace with the hydrometer on the return.
LegionPlaysPC 1.0If you're on a budget, aprilaire's AA720A model humidifier offers the best price/performance. Only down side is you need lots of room to install it on the supply plenum as it's a big boi. Water panel replacement is like $38 and done once a year. Alternatively, steam humidification will absolutely blow anything out of the water. It's just much, much better and completely water efficent. It's like $800 (plus tax/shipping) my cost for an AA800 series steam humidifer. Maintenance consists of a replacement canister once a year, like $100. However, it's pretty much maintenance-free otherwise. I'm a fan of ecobee's offerings for thermostats. However, you'd need to pull a new thermostat wire to accommodate the new humidifer. Something like an 18/10. Alternatively, both honeywell and Trane/AmStd make thermostats that have equipment interface modules. The thermostat uses 3 wires to "talk" to the module and the module controls everything from that. This eliminates the need to pull a new thermostat wire, however will have added cost to perform the job.
NothingNewAfter2 1.0Aprilaire 800. Doesn’t need to be mounted to the duct, just requires enough space to connect the hose to, which doesn’t take much at all.
You can mount it anywhere. It’s not that big of an issue worth mentioning. I’ve seen them mounted 3 STORIES below the duct work it connects to…
Ok-Discipline6541 1.0My home has two separate air handlers and each one has it's own humidifier (the humidifiers are 30+ years old). I'm wondering if I can just replace the humidifier attached to the 1st floor - I do not use much heat in the bedrooms upstairs so wondering if just 1 AprilAire 800 will be enough for the whole house (\~4000 sq ft). I would disconnect the 2nd floor one as it is old and can not be serviced. #
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