3 Benefits to Controlling Your Home’s Humidity with Humidifiers & Dehumidifiers
Household humidity control can make your home healthier, protect your belongings, and save you money. Learn about all of the benefits of humidifiers and dehumidifiers.
Last Revised: March 16, 2024
Read Time: 4 mins
We live in an age where our home’s environment is incredibly controllable considering how effective heating and cooling systems are at matching our thermostat adjustments.
Regardless of the weather, our HVAC systems comply to keep us comfortable with the push of a button. Yet many of us still overlook humidity as a factor in our home’s overall comfort level.
Both high and low indoor humidity levels have the potential to lead to a slew of problems. Neglecting indoor air quality has the potential to jeopardize our health, comfort, and even our household belongings. Fortunately, humidifiers and dehumidifiers are exceptional at keeping indoor moisture levels at the ideal range of 40%-60%.
As part of Mattioni Plumbing, Heating and Cooling’s commitment to sharing our industry knowledge, we’re going to explore the positive effects of addressing indoor humidity levels. Our team helps homeowners set up humidity control systems every day, so we have the inside scoop on what to expect when you invest in a humidifier and dehumidifier.
You’ll have a few options to consider, but in this article, we’re specifically going to dive into these benefits of addressing your home’s humidity:
- Comfort and Health Improvements
- Long-Term Utility Savings
- Improved Protection of Household Belongings
1. Comfort and Health Improvements
Low humidity coupled with low temperatures can cause all sorts of adverse health problems like dry skin, dry eyes, itchiness, and a sore throat. According to the National Library of Medicine, respiratory viruses are also significantly more transmissible at humidity levels below 40%. This means that low indoor humidity can make us much more susceptible to infections like the common cold and the flu.
Wintertime weather conditions can render our home an uncomfortable petri dish at a time when we want it to be warm and cozy. Running a humidifier during the dry winter months is a great start to help mitigate these issues.
On the other end of the spectrum, the dog days of summer come around and humidity levels rise alongside increasingly hot temperatures. This combination presents us with another suite of comfort and health implications which are primarily a result of our body’s inability to cool itself in extremely humid conditions.
When we’re not able to escape high indoor humidity levels, uncomfortable things like sweating, dehydration and fatigue are common. On the hottest days of the year, we can potentially encounter other adverse health problems like muscle cramps, headaches, and heatstroke.
High humidity in the home can also potentially lead to mold growth. A mold infestation in your home comes with its own health implications, including a stuffy nose, sore throat, coughing or wheezing, burning eyes, or skin rash, according to the CDC. Not to mention mold can also attack and cause damage to your walls, floors and ceilings.
During oppressively hot days, our homes should be an oasis of refreshing air, with controlled levels of both temperature and humidity. Dehumidifiers offer an effective approach to making this possible.
As if these health-related problems weren’t enough, perhaps the biggest health concern surrounding indoor humidity is asthma. Symptoms of asthma increase at both high and low humidity levels, so the best way to avoid triggers is to keep home humidity levels in the sweet spot of 40% to 60%.
2. Long-Term Utility Savings
We know that a good strategy for comfort and health is to operate humidifiers in the winter to offset the dryness that comes with colder temperatures, and run dehumidifiers during the humid and sweltering summer weather. However, the benefits of following this schedule extend to your wallet as well.
Air with a higher humidity level holds onto heat longer; think about how 100°F in notoriously humid Florida feels hotter than 100°F in arid Arizona. This effect also plays a part in a weather forecast’s “Real Feel.”
Humidity levels also impact how warm we feel in our home, as more household humidity triggers our body to sweat less. During the winter, higher humidity levels keeps us comfortable and helps hydrate our skin and hair. This makes us feel warmer than if there wasn’t a humidifier operating in the home.
By strategically running these devices seasonally, your home’s comfort level becomes less dependent on temperature alone. In other words, you won’t rely solely on your heating and cooling systems to achieve optimal comfort in your home. Considering that humidifiers and dehumidifiers use far less power, or fuel, than AC units, furnaces and boilers, it’s evident how this adds up to energy savings in the long run.
To illustrate the advantage of dehumidifiers, think about how on a hot summer day you may typically set your thermostat to 72°F to feel comfortable in your home. Once you get a whole-house dehumidifier up and running, you’ll be able to set it a few degrees higher to achieve the same level of comfort. This slight temperature change can give your cooling system, and your wallet, a well-deserved break.
Once again, this principle of using humidity to mitigate your dependence on heating and cooling applies in both the winter and summer, which will save you on expensive fuels like oil and gas as well as electricity.
3. Improved Protection of Household Belongings
Things like mold growth and wallpaper curling are common with high humidity levels. However, it may come as a surprise that low humidity can also damage your belongings and wreak havoc on your home’s structural integrity.
Our floors, furniture, and anything else made of wood are sitting ducks in homes that withstand long stretches of low humidity. When levels dip below 30%, we start to see household problems like hardwood floors warping and separating, furniture damage, shifting window panes, and even pianos and guitars dropping out of tune.
Damage like this seems to appear out of nowhere but is directly caused by persistently low humidity. If you’re experiencing one of these problems then you may have heard of some very outdated remedies like boiling water, leaving a door open for steam to escape when showering, and hanging clothes to dry indoors.
However, the most effective strategy to combat furniture and floor damage is to bring a humidifier into your home. Humidifiers will be able to preserve your household belongings by keeping humidity between 40% and 60% regardless of if you install one into your ductwork or set up multiple portable units.
Take Control of Your Home’s Environment
Optimizing humidity levels in your home through the strategic use of humidifiers and dehumidifiers is going to enhance the comfort and health conditions felt in your home from day one. However, the benefits don’t stop there.
Appropriately matching the use of these devices to the season will yield utility savings and preserve your household belongings over the long run as well.
Understanding your options and deciding which type of device(s) to install in your home will take some research if done diligently. When it comes to humidity control systems, there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer, so make sure you do what’s right for you and your family.
Mattioni has been helping families understand and install these systems for over 75 years. When you’re ready to take the next step with humidifiers and dehumidifiers, we’ll be here to assist you.
Call us at 610-400-8510 to schedule a consultation to discuss your options. Be sure to talk to your Mattioni professional about how a VIP Membership can save money on all your HVAC and plumbing projects.
