Seasonal Changes in Humidity and How to Manage Them

The amount of water vapor in your indoor air, or the humidity level, can directly affect your family’s health and comfort, increase your household energy consumption, and potentially damage your home’s structure and furnishings. Since the amount of airborne moisture varies depending on the time of year, managing humidity levels on a seasonal basis is essential.

How to Manage Humidity in the Spring and Summer

As temperatures rise in the spring and summer, water molecules are easily absorbed into the outdoor air, so humidity levels rise too. This can create an uncomfortably sticky indoor environment, where dust mites, mold, mildew and other allergens thrive. Excessive humidity can worsen allergic reactions and make breathing difficult for anyone with respiratory problems, plus it can warp wood structural components, and your floors, trim and furniture. To combat high warm-weather humidity:

• Turn on your cooling system, which condenses water from the air during the cooling process and sends it outdoors.
• Run your bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans when showering, cleaning and cooking to get rid of the extra water vapor added by these everyday activities.
• If high humidity is making your cooling system work overtime and increasing your energy bills, consider adding a whole-house dehumidifier to your HVAC system.

Managing Humidity in the Fall and Winter

When the outdoor temperatures drop in the fall and winter, there’s less moisture in the air. Heating your indoor spaces makes the air even drier, resulting in itchy skin, dried-out upper respiratory passages and a greater susceptibility to bacterial and viral illnesses. A lack of moisture can dry out anything made of wood inside your home, and increase your heating energy consumption because it’s harder to stay comfortably warm. To counteract low indoor humidity:

• Have a least two houseplants per 100 square feet of indoor space, and water them frequently.
• Use portable humidifiers at night in your bedrooms.
• Add a whole-house humidifier to your HVAC air handler to distribute a precise amount of moisture in your heated air.

For personalized advice about managing humidity levels in your Lorain-area home, contact us today at Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Lorain, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about humidity and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 440-201-2959.