I recently installed two Honeywell HE360 humidifiers. One above each furnace in a dual zone system. Everything seems to be working like it should, but the humidity in the house isn't going up.

The units are installed on the discharge of each furnace, and are piped to cold water. The water seems to be distributing through the pad fine - each of the holes in the top get water, the pad seems evenly coated, and there is a steady trickle of water coming out the bottom of the drain hose. The units are both level. The fans on each unit are running, and they run anytime the furnace is running. The humidistat is set to 'on'. The house is new and seems pretty tight. We recently had temps in the single digits and the furnaces didn't run that often. The house is 4900 sq/ft, 2 story, one zone for each floor.

The units have been in for two weeks and the humidity on both floors is running between 28-32%. Each unit is rated for 4200 sq/ft, so I expected to be able to put moisture on the windows. As it is, it doesn't seem to make a difference if I turn them off. I'm stumped. Does anyone have any ideas?

Hook up to the hot water line and you will get more humidification. You don't want it to be so humid that water condenses on your windows. That shows too much humidity. 32% is not bad if the outside temp is around 20-32 degrees.

Something isn't adding up here. If you have warm air moving over a wet pad, it should be picking up moisture. I doubt switching to hot water will make much difference. I wonder if the furnace just isn't running enough. Will the humidifiers run if you switch to continuous fan?

Another thing is if the house and all its furnishings are bone dry, it may have to run long enough for everything to quit sucking all the moisture out of the air.

Trust me, hot water will produce signifcantly more humidity than cold water. Also, most setups only have the humidifier running when the furnace is firing. Running the fan should not run the humidifier.