I have a 700 unit that my installer (just because he was lazy, I guess) installed in Manual mode. Now that heating season is here, I have noticed something odd with the humidity in my home. The humidifier panel on the furnace has been reading around 50% humidity. My humidistat up on the second floor, however, has been reading 32-38%, and it feels a bit dry at times.
I have the control knob set to 7 (max), but because the panel reads 50% humidity, the humidifier never kicks on when I'm watching it, because I guess 50% is above when it would turn on, even with the dial at 7. The unit does operate when I turn it to test mode.

I guess my main question is...is it odd that the control panel is reading 50%, while the upstairs of the home is 15% lower? I figured the furnace would churn up the air to make these numbers more equal, and therefore be triggering the humidifier to come on, and raise the 35% number.

As I mentioned, I do not have it hooked up in Automatic mode at this time, but it seems to me that doing that would not really remedy the situation, because the panel in the basement would still be reading the "50%" humidity that it is picking up.

Any thoughts on this range of humidity readings, and is it normal? Any suggestions or concerns?


Aprilaires' response:

You are correct that 50% would be outside the operating range of the humididistat. I would try to put it into test reset to try to force it to take a new reading. There could be some discrepancies since the upstairs unit is pulling from one specific area and the duct mounted humidistat is taking an average.
If test-reset does not clear the reading we could potentially do a hard reset pulling power at R&C from the control