No one wants to live in a humid home. And in summer, controlling humidity in your home can be a challenge.
Controlling Humidity in Your Tulsa Home Increases Summer Comfort
How humidity makes you feel warmer“It's not the heat, its the humidity,” is a common expression. And it is true. A higher level of humidity in your home will make you and your family feel hotter on a warm day. But why?
Humans release heat from their bodies in a many ways, but the most common is by sweating. It is the evaporation of the skin's sweat that cools your body. A humid environment reduces this evaporation and makes you feel warmer. People feel most comfortable in homes with a relative humidity level of around 45 percent.
Controlling humidity in your home
Maintaining an ideal level of humidity in your home can be difficult. While air conditioners can reduce the humidity in your home's air by cooling the air (cool air holds less moisture than warm air), A/Cs are not the ideal way of reducing humidity. A/Cs are designed for hot weather operation and humidity is a hot and cool weather problem. To feel a difference year-round, you need to install a dehumidifier.
There are two types of dehumidifiers: a whole house dehumidifier and a portable unit. The portable unit can be placed in any room as needed. While this may sound like a good idea, remember that dehumidifiers are noisy. Depending on where you place your unit, you may find the noise to be distracting. In addition, as many portable dehumidifiers are not attached to drain pipe, the unit's water reservoir needs to be emptied often. Whole house dehumidifiers are built into the HVAC system of the home. They have the benefit of dehumidifying your entire house and require less maintenance.
Homeowners thinking about installing a dehumidifier, should speak with HVAC experts to assist them in their decisions. The HVAC specialists at Air Assurance are more than happy to assist you with any of your heating and cooling needs. Air Assurance has been proudly serving the Tulsa-area community since 1985.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Image courtesy of Shutterstock