Household humidity plays an important role in maintaining your home’s indoor air quality. You want your relative humidity (RH) levels to remain between 40 and 60%. Anything above or below these numbers can have a very noticeable effect on your overall comfort levels.
As heating and air conditioning repair, installation and maintenance experts with years of experience in the industry, our professionals at Airworks have listed a few of the best solutions we recommend for solving humidity problems in your home.
Assessing Comfort Levels
Every person has different needs. An RH level that’s perfect for one person might be too high or too low for another. This means that the first step in optimizing your humidity levels should begin with determining your own preferences. You can do this by understanding the effects different levels of RH have on you.
Homes with low RH are notorious for static buildup. Do you get zapped whenever you come in contact with metallic surfaces? Do you notice plastic, fur and other similar items clinging to you? If so, these are sure signs of low RH. Additionally, the humidity can also affect your body by drying out your lips and causing them to chap easily. The effects may even extend to your nose and throat, irritating them and making them more susceptible to infections.
High RH levels, on the other hand, will make you feel clammy and sweaty. This is more common during the warm days of spring and summer when your heating systems are not in use. They can make the air feel heavier and warmer than it actually is, and the excess sweating tends to promote musty odors in the home. Allergies can also worsen in homes with high humidity, causing coughing, sneezing and itchy eyes.
Balancing Humidity Levels
The solution to resolving these types of issues is dependent on whether you have too much or too little humidity in your home. A whole-home humidifier/dehumidifier is the perfect retrofit to an existing HVAC system to help you maintain appropriate RH levels. If your thermostat doesn’t already have built-in humidistat functionality, consider getting one of these as well so you can monitor your humidity levels more closely.
For homes in dry areas, you may opt for more energy efficient heat recovery ventilation (HRV) to resolve humidity problems. Adequately ventilating your home will work wonders in maintaining just the right RH level, allowing you to avoid humidity problems while limiting the amount of energy consumed.
At Airworks, we’re your trusted provider of air conditioning and heating repair, maintenance and installation. Give us a call at (406) 630-4170 or fill out this online contact form to schedule a meeting in your home or office and get a free no-obligation quote. We serve homeowners in Whitefish, MT, including nearby areas like Kalispell.
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