How does steam humidification work?

Steam humidifiers have been in use for decades and steam humidification can be likened to boiling a kettle and directing the flow of the steam that comes out of the bottle, via a special pipe network in to the room or into the duct - whichever has been specified.

The electrodes that sit within the humidifier cylinder are powered by the mains electricity supply, and depending on the type of humidifier (there are two different types - electrode steam and resistive steam)  will either heat the water or will cause the ions within the water to perform a dance between the electrodes and ultimately heat the water to provide the needed amount of steam.

The steam is delivered into the space using a steam hose - a specially manufactured type of spring loaded hose pipe that is heat resistant and flexible to allow for proper insertion into the the duct or to the room.  When mounting the hose, it is important to angle the hose at least 5 degrees to allow for any condensate build up to drop back down into the humidifier and to stop the hose from blocking up the steam hose.

Naturally, when there is a build up of condensate in the hose, it can cause a blockage for the steam to travel up and out of the hose and will eventually lead to problems with controlling the humidity being released, and may make the humidifier work harder than it needs to - wasting energy in the process.  Secondary to this of course is the problems with stagnant water building up as a result of the condensate resting in once place (inside the hose) - this is not good from a health and safety perspective.

CAREL Fan Distributor

When installing the steam humidifier, most installers will use a 'fan distributor' of some sort that comes built with small electric fans to blow the steam out in to the room, helping to gain as much coverage of the space as possible.  Occasionally, the fans need to be replaced, and also a little tweaking of the angle of the fan distributor is need to avoid the spitting of large droplets of water.  The water droplets will naturally be hot, so to be aware of this is necessary when installing the fan distributor.

CAREL Steam Lance

The alternative is to use a sparge pipe that will go directly in to the air handling unit to supply the humidified air into the air conditioning system.







Typically the humidifier will come with a controller that, using a humidity probe will measure the room relative humidity, and can moderate the humidification process within the humidifier to produce enough steam for the room.  As an example, a food ripening processing room will require set temperatures and humidity levels in order to produce the most effective conditions for the ripening.  When setting up the steam humidifier, the installer can set the parameters to read the temperature and relative humidity within the room and adjust the humidifier accordingly.  The electronic control board of the humidifier wil use a  number of processes to control the level of humidity being produced and will provide a live read out of the current state of the room in question.

We use CAREL selection software to determine the size of the humidifier needed for a particular application.  All a customer needs to do is supply us with the size of the room, type of room, temperature, desired humidity level, and moisture losses and various other measurements and we will work out the best type of steam humidifier to be used in the room.

CAREL heaterSteam

We consider CAREL humidifiers the best in the market for four main reasons:

• Ease of use
• Cost effective
• Accurate control of relative humidity
• Reliable

We have partnered with CAREL for many years, and so we have extensive experience n installing steam humidifiers into commercial, domestic and industrial environments.  


Projects include print houses, food ripening plants, museums, factories, offices, manufacturing plants, luxury houses and many more.