Aprilaire Steam Humidifier Fire

Staz

Anyone else experience this?

motoguy128

Never heard of it. I’ve installed 3 including my own home. 3rd heating season for mine, 2nd canister.

I wonder if the electrode connection wasn’t tight. Lost of voltage if its loose, would arc and make a lot of heat then melt the plastic.

Probably a reason the enclosure is all metal.

Wonder if extra clearance From combustibles would be a good idea just in case. Ie don’t mount it near the ceiling in a basement.

EBEBRATT-Ed

No but I suppose if the canisters were powered and there was no water in the unit it would cause issues

Tim Potter

Staz, What are the details of your incident? can you tell us more?

Thank You,

Tim

SuperTech

The Aprilaire steam humidifier seems to be the most reliable humidifier that I've ever installed or serviced. I install a new canister every fall and I never get a service call or any complaints about them. 
Definitely never heard of any fires.

unclejohn

Never say never. There is a guy named Murphy.

mattmia2

If it is empty there is no water to conduct so not likely any current if the electrode gap is reasonable.

A loose connection could definitely overheat and burn something and i think those draw about 10a so if there is an sort of resistance in the connection there is lots of power to be dissipated there.

Derheatmeister

mattmia2 said:

If it is empty there is no water to conduct so not likely any current if the electrode gap is reasonable.

A loose connection could definitely overheat and burn something and i think those draw about 10a so if there is an sort of resistance in the connection there is lots of power to be dissipated there.

If it is empty (No Water) and the Cartridge is full of Debrie it could conduct

Depending on Voltage supplied to these units these units can draw way more that just10 Amps..

Derheatmeister

Staz said:

Has anyone seen any Aprilaire steam humidifiers canisters or electrodes within burn or catch on fire?

We have about 8 of them installed and never seen any Burn/ Meltdowns yet..

HOWEVER... We had one in a five system install (14 000 sqft home) that got stuck and created a Tropical rain forest enviroment in one of the rooms.
As you can imagine the damage was bad..
We tried taking it up with Aprilaire but at that time they lost their western regional manager and would not support us with this..
Just short of getting Lawyers involved the owners decided to take care of this by themself..Not sure if the home owners insurance kicked in..
I have one sitting in our shop ready to be installed in our own home and think i may have to rethink this install...
Did you start a claim with AA ?
Did they send anyone out to investigate ?
This could have been much worse that just a meltdown of the product and you would think that AA would want to figure out why this happened..
Please keep us updated why this happened and what the outcome was..

mattmia2

Derheatmeister said:

mattmia2 said:

If it is empty there is no water to conduct so not likely any current if the electrode gap is reasonable.

A loose connection could definitely overheat and burn something and i think those draw about 10a so if there is an sort of resistance in the connection there is lots of power to be dissipated there.

If it is empty (No Water) and the Cartridge is full of Debrie it could conduct

Depending on Voltage supplied to these units these units can draw way more that just10 Amps..

That should be regulated in some way. A wet paste would be the worst case, but just a canister of water with however much minerals have collected will have a widely varying resistance and there should be a circuit regulating the power it draws and there should be a fuse or other overcurrent protection to shut it all down if that regulator shorts. I suppose the right combination of damp debris could catch fire without drawing excessive current.

Staz

Staz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WpoUuB4qd8

Staz

k

Staz

https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2023/Research-Products-Recalls-Steam-Humidifiers-Due-to-Fire-Hazard