Old furnace humidifier.

[chigundo]

I bought this house in April and it was built in 1949 and has what looks like close to the original furnace, but nobody can tell.

It's an oil furnace, with a relatively newer carlin burner. Forced air.

It has a humidifier setup that everyone tells me not to use, and it seems that it hasn't been used in a while. It's the old drum tumbler setup.

Is this something I could replace with a newer type of humidfiier? Or is that something that needs to wait until I replace the whole furnace? Furnace has been inspected several times and everyone says the same thing, "it works".

It's starting to get cold and before I get this thing running routinely, I'd like to figure out the humidifier part.

[tunnel_rat]

The humidifier is probably filthy, right? Never cleaned, or serviced. They make me sick just to remove that funky stuff. I wouldn't want my air contaminated by whatever mold it is growing. I would either replace it with a drumless type, or remove it completely. If it works and is clean,( few that I've seen ) try it out, but it will require regular cleaning depending on the quality of water you have. Otherwise it will just blow bacteria around.

[beenthere]

Have your furnaced serviced, and ask that while the tech is there, he checks if its still usable.

[chigundo]

If I don't remove it but keep it off, will it still circulate the bad water/bacteria into the air?

[beenthere]

Not if there is no water in it.