Why It’s Important to Manage the Humidity in Your House
Controlling the humidity level in the house is one of the easiest ways to make your home more comfortable. Regardless of the climate that you live in, humidity has a significant impact on the quality of the air you breathe in. As a result, not taking adequate precautions for managing the humidity in a house can create serious risks for your health.
Too much or too little humidity in the house can wreak havoc on your life. That’s why our team at Entek has put together this primer to help you understand the importance of managing humidity levels indoors.
What Is Humidity?
Let’s begin by addressing the basics. Simply put, humidity refers to the amount of water vapor in the air. This is also known as absolute humidity. Temperature doesn’t have any impact on the absolute humidity.
There’s another indicator of humidity called relative humidity. This refers to the amount of water present in the air relative to the temperature. Since warm air is capable of holding a higher amount of moisture compared to cooler air, the relative humidity of cold air is higher than warm air, provided the absolute humidity is the same.
Typically, the ideal relative humidity level is 30 to 50 percent.
Why Managing the Humidity Levels Is Essential?
There are several reasons for managing the optimal level of humidity in a house. First off, humidity levels can impact the overall well-being of your home, especially if you love having wooden furniture or flooring.
Low Humidity
Extremely low levels of humidity in the house prevent the wood from retaining adequate moisture. As a result, the wood dries up, creating unpleasant cracks along the grain. It can be costly to carry out the repair work. Moreover, you may only discover alarmingly low levels of relative humidity in your house once the wooden surfaces in your house suffer extensive damage. Very low humidity can also increase the air’s static electricity, resulting in more shocks when you touch surfaces such as metallic doorknobs or electrical items.
Humidity levels also impact your skin in a similar manner. Low levels of humidity can cause your skin to become itchy and scaly. If you already suffer from any form of dermatitis, such as eczema, low humidity can exacerbate it and result in more flare-ups. Even extremely chapped lips are an indicator of low humidity levels in your house.
You may also become more prone to developing respiratory disorders, as low humidity can adversely impact the mucous of your cell membranes. You may experience increased nasal congestion on account of dry and irritated sinus membranes. You may even suffer from sore throats frequently.
High Humidity
Extremely high humidity levels are equally damaging to your house. Excess moisture can completely destroy your flooring, whether carpeting or hardwood. You may notice condensation on your windows and walls. Additionally, your appliances can experience significant rust and oxidation. It can also cause your walls to rot and encourage the growth of fungus, dust mites, and molds. The unchecked growth of such organisms can aggravate existing allergies or cause significant health issues.
Your quality of sleep may be impacted due to high humidity in the house—you may feel extremely hot at night and find it difficult to get restful sleep. As a result, you may need to crank up the air conditioning, resulting in inflated electricity bills. Your body may end up sweating more than usual to compensate for the higher levels of humidity, leaving you dehydrated in the process. In severe cases, you may also suffer from exhaustion, fever, headaches, or chills.
Benefits of Managing Humidity
Managing humidity levels can also improve your productivity. For instance, when the humidity is extremely low, your eyes tend to dry out, resulting in frequent blinking. This can affect your work and cause a deterioration in your productivity, especially if your job involves a lot of visual activities such as reading on your screen for a long duration.
Lastly, in the wake of the pandemic, monitoring your house’s humidity level has become even more critical. According to recent research, extreme humidity levels can increase the chances of contracting infections, as viruses thrive in extremely high and extremely low humidity levels.
Additionally, our lungs have a liquid mucous barrier that acts as the preliminary defense against pathogens. Lower relative humidity levels can impact the lungs’ mucous layer and prevent it from doing a proper job to avoid infections. By controlling the optimal amount of humidity in the house, you can regulate the growth of pathogens and protect yourself from contracting COVID-19, provided you also follow other preventive measures recommended by the CDC.
Are You Losing Sleep Over Controlling the Humidity Level in Your Home?
Managing the humidity level in your house can be challenging. After all, it’s not practical to roam around your house with a hygrometer. Investing in a dehumidifier or a humidifier cannot completely resolve the problem, as these appliances are only useful for smaller areas.
While creaking floors and skin issues can tell you that there’s a need to control the humidity levels, you still need a reliable method to manage it efficiently. That’s why investing in an integrated HVAC system can be incredibly useful, and here’s where we step in.
Entek offers you a reliable HVAC service that can assess the needs of your home and come up with the right solution for controlling the humidity levels. We have a team of qualified professionals who believe in a whole-house philosophy—we don’t believe in carrying our individual improvements alone. Instead, we suggest solutions that can maximize the efficiency of the entire house.
Once we carry out a Home Performance Assessment, we can recommend solutions that will help restore the ideal humidity levels in your house and make it more energy-efficient. If you need a free estimate for replacing your existing HVAC system or want our certified technicians to carry out an assessment in your house, feel free to contact us.