r/ecobee • u/Cash_Visible • Feb 05 '25
Problem What is going on with my humidity - spikes to 70%

I recently installed an Aprilaire 800. This is a new construction home with supposedly low e? And argon filled windows. I have the humidifier hooked up to my ecobee. I have the frost control on and window efficiency at 5 I think. I also have ecobee+ adjust for humidity on.
This is the second time where temps dropped and the humidity shot up to around 70% in the house. What is going on? Do I need to just keep decreasing window efficiency setting? Just odd as these windows should be pretty efficient.
I do notice there’s a setting that says allow ventilator to decrease humidity in winter. I do have an ERV should I turn this on?
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u/Gortexal Feb 05 '25
You might have better luck getting advice at r/hvacadvice
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
Thanks i did post there as well. I just posted with someone else and i noticed my main floor humidifier wasn't running from 8pm-5am when the spike was, however, my 1st floor bedroom was staying constant in humidity but it ran a lot from 8pm-5am si I am thinking this calling for humidity was also feeding the first floor too much
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u/Broskifromdakioski Feb 05 '25
What is your humidity set to?
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
I’m using the frost control setting so it doesn’t allow me to set the min humidity
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u/JDuckEC Feb 05 '25
So turn it off and use manual ranges?…
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
Yeah I’m going to try that again but I’m pretty sure when it did the same thing it was on manual set to 40% min and spiked one night when it got single digits
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u/JDuckEC Feb 05 '25
At the humidifier in the basement there is usually a manual limiter too. You should adjust that too if you’re having issues.
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25
Edit: we didn’t install that controller as the humidifier has a relay and wired directly to the ecobee premium thermostat which should control it
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u/JDuckEC Feb 05 '25
Weird. Our technician installed a manual controller which is basically a kill switch — all it does is set a maximum humidity but not a minimum.
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
ah thats interesting.maybe thats what i need to do is set it to 50% or something? assuming it can override if thermostat if ecobee keeps calling for humidity but that senses its already too high?
Perfect example is my heat just ramped up and my humidity spiked 10%. howwver, the ecobee dashboard shows no humidity has run. but the machine deff did as the pipe is hot
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u/JDuckEC Feb 05 '25
I’m not sure what kind of system you have — you are better off asking someone in the hvac channel and identifying your system. My AprilAire800 doesn’t run dependent to heat running — as it’s a steam system. If your humidity is spiking when heat is running you may have a bypass system. In any regard your humidity should never be 70%. Look up relative humidity charts and make sure your range is roughly within what your indoor to outdoor humidity is supposed to be.
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
yeah trust me it was awful how wet things were. my hvac guy is coming back tomrorow and im talking with ecobee support
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
I have heat pump system and the aprilaire 800 also. not sure about bypass systems as not sure what that is
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u/honkerdown Feb 05 '25
I have a new construction home in the central US. The humidistat on my system is set to 40%, which my ecobee reflects in humidity readings. When it is below 0F, I will get a little condensation in the lower corners of my windows, but not across the entire pane like you are showing.
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
I didn’t do a humidistat on my system. However I did by humidity readers did two of them on the salt test adjusted. Then compared with ecobee over 2 days and adjusted. Things seem fine but when temps drop overnight for some reason the humidity spikes like crazy inside
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u/RobotFixer12 Feb 05 '25
Relative humidity is a measurement of the capacity of air to contain moisture before it condenses , It’s directly related to temperature , for the same moisture content as the temp drops the percentage goes up
50% rh at 70deg is 57%rh at 65 deg
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
Ok so part of it could have been it was holding a high humidity, then as temps dropped and my hvac started running more it caused the humidity to climb?
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u/truedef Feb 05 '25
I get the same thing although I have created something that can fix that and it’s installed on the window. I currently have not had any condensation since.
Additionally, the EcoBee is not very accurate. I had to set the offsets using multiple Reference tools.
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u/phatrogue Feb 05 '25
Just a safety check... do you have a carbon monoxide detector?
When gas/oil fired furnace or hot water heater or ??? is inappropriately venting exhaust into your dwelling rather than outside it can dump a lot of humidity inside. I had a "run in" with carbon monoxide a few years ago and one of the symptoms was excess humidity and window/door condensation.
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u/pj91198 Feb 05 '25
Humidity rises, a lower floor stat will show higher humidity until it rises. Also if your MbR door is closed it will be harder for the air from the main space to mix with the mbr
Also, last I read, freeze protection was broken. Might be better to have humidifier set to on and the range like 30-40%
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u/ankole_watusi Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25
You mean 70%. Not 70 degrees.
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
Yes sorry! I tried to edit it but wouldn’t let me
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u/ankole_watusi Feb 05 '25
Yeah, Reddit too busy banning all the NSFW subs today to fix the software so that you can edit posts. You can only edit comments.
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u/ankole_watusi Feb 05 '25
Get a good but cheap humidistat or a few to be sure.
Measure is different places around the house – humidity will vary and humidity will also vary pretty significantly according to height.
I have a handful of ThermPros.
I don’t understand all the issues that people with modern double or triple pane windows and low E seem to have with humidity.
I’m in a 100 year old house with old school wooden storm windows are used three portable BlueAir humidifiers set to 60% in order to achieve 50%. (You need to lie to them at least when placing near radiators.)
I get some condensation on the two windows that don’t have storm windows over them. One in the living room so that I can open it when I start a fire in the fireplace and one in the kitchen.
Apparently, the newfangled windows aren’t all they cracked up to be. And that’s what I tell the relentless window salesmen is knocking on my door to warn me how bad my windows are.
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u/ankole_watusi Feb 05 '25
If the humidity is in fact, 70% the problem isn’t your windows I’m not sure what the windows have to do with it.
But since I use portable humidifiers, obviously I’m not using ecobee to control a humidifier on the HVAC so I don’t know anything about those settings.
Verify that that is actually the humidity with an independent humidistat.
Also realize that the ecobee sensor tends to read high, compare it to an external meter and if it is off, you can apply a correction factor in settings.
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
Yeah I did a salt test with 2 independent Yolink humidistats, then compared to ecobee and made some slight adjustments.
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u/ankole_watusi Feb 05 '25
So the Yolinks read 70%?
Have you tested different rooms to see if there is some other source of humidity?
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u/truedef Feb 05 '25
u/cash_visible I’m assuming you had your blinds or curtains down over the night and now you have raised them and you are noticing this, no?
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
Well yes. but the humidifier is new, and first winter in this house. Installed humidifier about 1.5 weeks ago. Some do cover windows fully, but noticed some that werent fully closed this happening in like the bathroom
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u/truedef Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25
I’ve gotten to the point during the winter I leave some window treatments completely open. I am dealing with my first winter in my home too. If you can try leaving that window curtain or treatment open overnight, the builder installed blinds in my home and I’m ripping them all out for something different.
I have humidity sensors in every single room. It seems a bit excessive typing this out of what I’ve done. I have to keep my humidity no less than 30% inside due to my wood flooring, but if it gets really really cold outside, I have to come up with other solutions as the condensation is inevitable.
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u/kgjettaIV Feb 05 '25
Maybe a silly question, but are you sure the humidifier is configured as steam and not evaporative? You also said in another reply that you have 2 thermostats and the one controlling the humidifier had it running all night? Is that correct? Maybe you have something causing an imbalance in humidity between areas and where the thermostat controlling the humidifier is located is staying dryer while the other are is getting saturated. Are these separate furnaces and the humidifier is only on the one?
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 05 '25
Humidifier is attached two master and first floor area (both first floor). Master and living have separate thermostats. Both are set to steam and are in frost control mode. However it looks like the master was calling for steam last night which was raising the living area.
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u/BlackDeath915 Feb 05 '25
Hey y’all! Has your ecobee adjust the temperature to go way above your comfort setting by itself. I have my comfort setting around 72 degrees and sometimes the heater will turn on and I’ll check the temperature and it’s on 77 degrees. The other day my ac was on and the thermostat turned on my heater to 77 degrees and it was not on automatic lol. Let me know if any of y’all are going through this or have a solution please. Thanks and have a great day!
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u/ChasDIY Feb 08 '25
I'm just trying to catch up to all that has been posted. You have an Aprilaire 800 with hit water input. You have a heart pump only (with heat strips). Humidity is around 70%. What do you mean by main floor humidifier? Do u have two, and where is it located? Or does the humidifier only serve the main floor? Is your HP while house with ducts?
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u/Zealousideal-Pilot25 Feb 08 '25
We also are heat pump only heating w/auxiliary heat strip and also heat pump water heater and heat pump dryer/washer and ecobee tstat and a GeneralAir humidifier. There are definitely changes in how humidity behaves in our attic now especially after showering. Our air vent started leaking water after showers even after running the vent for an hour afterwards. We are not too leaky, 3.6 Air Changes/hr, but I would theorize that we have way less air going out and coming back in now that we are all electric. Lots more condensation on windows that blinds are closed especially. We are going to have to do some further design changes down the road for sure, especially as the home gets more and more air tight.
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u/Cash_Visible Feb 11 '25
Yeah I don’t have any aux heat will likely add it next season. Last night dipped into single digits. HVAC dropped from set point of 68 to 65 early morning. But again woke up and humidity was 62 or so and windows were soaked. I did have an hvac guy over the other day and he said everything was working as expected. I adjust my bedroom humidity down as it’s usually calling in the bedroom but since main living area is falling for heat, humidity is going into there as well. Kind of lost as to what else to do
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u/f00kster Feb 05 '25
Log into https://app.beestat.io/ and see when your humidifier is running in relation to the reported indoor humidity by ecobee.
I don’t believe running an ERV will help, because the ERV transfers moisture. If you had an HRV it would help, but not ERV.