How to Prevent High Humidity Levels at Home

Table Of Content

• Everyday activities like cooking, washing, and showering can contribute to humidity levels.
• Open the Windows
• What’s the Difference? Slab Foundation vs. Crawl Space
• It’s not just about humidity; air quality matters, too
• Get your home professionally air sealed
• Invest in a Portable Air Conditioner
• Dehumidification of Air Flow

This summer, people across the U.S. will have a new way to keep track of dangerous heat headed their way through a new heat warning system called HeatRisk. Zhang noted that the five-month lead time for the prediction is based on the current state of ENSO. According to Boos, some areas that frequently suffer under humid heat stress, such as northern India, have a 50% chance of suffering record heat and humidity this summer. The Sahel region in Africa, however, has a 35% chance of record humid heat. Place bowls of the stuff in any areas of your house where humidity is high. Baking soda works best in smaller rooms, so use charcoal or rock salt if you’re working with a larger area.

Everyday activities like cooking, washing, and showering can contribute to humidity levels.

“For homes with low humidity, homeowners often experience dry noses and are at a higher risk of getting sick more often. In their homes, wood will crack more easily and they may experience a lot of static,” says Kevin Eddingfield, a top Thumbtack Pro Advisor. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the optimal indoor humidity is 30% to 50%. However, exceeding 60% can lead to issues such as mold growth and respiratory problems. Efficient airflow and water management are the two biggest factors to keep levels in check — and they’re important.

Open the Windows

The latent cooling load is the energy required to remove moisture from the air; the sensible cooling load is the energy required to cool the air. This infiltration may also exceed the ability of the HVAC system to remove moisture from the supply air. If you notice unpleasant smells in your indoor environment, it could indicate high humidity levels. Identifying and addressing where the moisture comes from can help eliminate these odors. Condensation can be a sign that you have high indoor humidity and occurs when warm, moisture-laden air comes into contact with cooler surfaces, causing water vapor to transform into liquid water. You can identify condensation by droplets on windows, mirrors or other surfaces.

What’s the Difference? Slab Foundation vs. Crawl Space

In this case, we need to understand humidity before we attempt to create a plan on how to deal with it. With a lifelong fascination with HVAC mechanics and a mechanical engineering degree from Berkeley, Thomas Johnson boasts years of industry expertise. He founded AirComfortLab.com to fill the void of understandable and useful online information about complex HVAC systems. As the chief editor, Thomas strives to provide accurate and engaging content to help readers make informed HVAC decisions.

Insufficient humidity can also make you feel colder, tempting you to turn the thermostat higher than necessary — and leading to a higher heating bill. Your humidity problems may be coming from the soil under your home. We’re all familiar with condensation and that factor applies to more than just your water bottle. Water can come up from the ground and enter your home through the walls and floors of your basement and foundation. Water vapor is generally invisible to the human eye unless the water content is abnormally high and the temperatures of the air allow the water to hang in the balance between gas and physical form. Consider getting some of these for your windowsill to help control the humidity in your house.

Get your home professionally air sealed

Too little moisture in the air can have deleterious health effects. "Dry air can cause several things, like dry sinuses, dry skin, bloody noses, cracked lips, dry hair, sore throat, aggravated allergies, and so much more," Cindy Kang, the co-founder of Hey Dewy, explains. The right conditions can help you avoid indoor mold and mildew growth, skin and allergy flare-ups, and poor air quality overall.

Same goes for all your exhaust fans, like the ones in your kitchen and bathroom. If possible, it’s best for them to vent to the outdoors instead of redistributing the humid air inside your home. Run the fan on your over-the-range microwave or range hood every time you’re using the stovetop, especially if you’re cooking something steamy like pasta. Run your bathroom fan when you take a shower and for at least 20 minutes afterward. And don’t forget to clean the filters on your range hood or over-the-range microwave often to keep your fans in top-notch working condition. To remove dust from the outside of your bathroom fan, you can vacuum it with a soft brush attachment.

Invest in a Portable Air Conditioner

HomeAdvisor can help streamline finding reputable professionals who can tackle your air purification and dehumidification goals. Not only will you enjoy a healthier home atmosphere, but you’ll also preserve the integrity of your home for years to come. It might be hard to believe that simply circulating air could help alleviate high humidity in a house, but it actually makes a world of difference.

Ventilation systems require careful attention to detail during the specification and installation process, so consult your local HVAC professional for assistance. Pricing varies by system type and installation requirements, but homeowners should expect to spend between $900 and $4,200 for a new ventilation system installed by a licensed professional. If your home is only a few decades old, you likely have a kitchen hood vent fan and at least one bathroom or utility room exhaust fan. Running these fans will exhaust stale and humid air from your home and draw in fresh air from outside. Remember that if your current outdoor relative humidity is higher than the humidity inside your home, operating exhaust fans can work against you by increasing indoor humidity levels. If you live in a muggy or coastal environment, Tip 3 below might be a better option.

The Ideal Humidity Level for Your House - Martha Stewart

The Ideal Humidity Level for Your House.

Posted: Wed, 04 Aug 2021 07:00:00 GMT [source]

When negative building pressurization occurs in humid climates, the result can be multimillion-dollar moisture and mold problems from intrusion and condensation of moist outside air. The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) has found that building pressures as low as +1 pascal (Pa) relative to outside conditions are sufficient to prevent outside air infiltration problems. If you’re worried about mold in your home, you should know that high indoor humidity provides an ideal environment for mold growth. Mold thrives in damp conditions and can appear on walls, ceilings and other surfaces. Look out for discolored patches, fuzzy growth or a musty odor, as these are common signs of mold.

Dew point vs humidity: Unraveling the science behind Queensland's uncomfortable 'feels like' temperatures - ABC News

Dew point vs humidity: Unraveling the science behind Queensland's uncomfortable 'feels like' temperatures.

Posted: Mon, 29 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Where people live, and what heat conditions they're used to, also play a role in their vulnerability to heat. "90 degrees in Miami is not the same as 90 degrees in Portland, Maine," says Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the CDC. The National Weather Service (NWS) will be able to issue HeatRisk warnings a full week ahead of dangerous heat. Climate change, driven primarily by human burning of fossil fuels, has increased the intensity, duration, and danger of heat waves across North America. "I think it provides a pretty good bar for the supercomputer models that are predicting climate on a seasonal time scale." Achieving positive pressurization requires that interior building partitions do not adversely affect the distribution of air by restricting the flow.

We mentioned above that running your air conditioner is usually the primary way to combat high humidity in your home. However, if you feel humid, hot, and clammy even with your AC on full blast, there could be a problem with your unit. Activities like boiling food, taking hot showers and even breathing produce moisture in your home—moisture that will get trapped if it has no way to escape.

On the other end of the spectrum, having dry air comes with its own set of problems. Too little humidity can result in dryness and irritation to the eyes, throats, and sinuses. Certain construction materials, furnishings, flooring, and artwork may become damaged. There are several ways that indoor humidity affects your health and home. A simple way to think of relative humidity describes, as a percentage, how much moisture there is in the air compared to how much there could be (keeping in mind that warmer air can hold more water than cooler air). Folks who prefer to line-dry laundry might consider doing so on an outdoor clothesline rather than inside the home.

That can happen through simple condensation or you could have a leak. If you have major water issues in the lower portions of your home, you need to consult with a professional. The most obvious and probably the most pressing matter regarding humidity is our health. We all want to live long happy lives and we don’t expect what’s inside our homes to be slowly killing us!

If you’re curious about potential antidotes to long-term high humidity exposure, check out the five tips below. So if you already know that you have high humidity problems in your home, what can you do about it? Many of the prevention measures are also effective in dealing with existing issues.