Our home uses forced hot air. Most of the ducts run under the crawlspace of the home and are thus not insulated. Yet...

I read on the energystar.gov site that wrapping the ducts in insulation can help save on heating costs. What sort of insulation would I use? I was at Lowes yesterday and saw some sort of silver foil based material called Reflectix. Is that the right stuff to be using? If not, can someone suggest a type of insulation to use?

Also, we've owned this home 2 years. Before he left, the previous owner said the house is very dry. No humidifier was installed at the time however I can tell one was used in the past since the VERY old Honeywell Humistat was removed but left nearby.

We have a 2 week old son and I am of course concerned with his health. I want to install an in-duct humidifer but with a plan to have the ducts cleaned by a professional first and then I would add the induct humidifier.

My main concern is that of mold and allergy and the newborn and family. Do in duct humidifiers encourage mold and allergy? Some suggest they do.

I look forward to all the sage advice here. Thanks.

Plus with all our wood flooring, I think some humidity is needed.

To comment on what's been said so far, thankfully, NONE of the ductwork is flex. It's all that tin/metal tubing. So first, as you described, I would seal all the joints, then wrap them with some sort of radiant heat insulating sheet. (That was what I saw at Lowes.) Any other recommendations on what to wrap them with?

The furnace is pretty accessible. I was actually looking at a Honeywell model and considering mounting it just as you described, with the bypass on the cold air return and warm air unit on the hot air. In fact, I'm gonna take a photo now....

"A" is where I was going to install the drum, "B" is the return where I figured the bypass duct would go and "C" is the furnace. Did I tag that correctly?

Oh, and B is where there was an old humidity humidistat that was removed and simply replaced with duct tape.

I only saw the plate type humidifers at Home Depot. Tell me more about the drum type. And please let me know any recommendations on what models to get. THe home is small, about 1300 squ feet.

Any recommendations on brands, etc?

I would mount the humidifier unit somewhere near point B, probably along the back of the duct. Install your bypass duct and damper somewhere near A. The instructions will tell you the best place to install the new humidistat. Most are designed to just plug in but I wired mine to only get power when the furnace fan operates.

Good luck.

Info:
http://autoflohumidifiers.com/humidifiers/steam-humidifier-S2000-S2020.html

See link below