You’ve heard people say, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” And no doubt you’ve noticed that high humidity can make you feel the impact of the heat even more. There’s a simple, scientific reason for that: air that’s already saturated with moisture can’t absorb any more. Since your body cools itself by perspiring, allowing air to absorb some of your heat with that moisture, you’ll overheat faster when it’s humid.
This overheating caused by humidity won’t just be uncomfortable for you. It can have other impacts on your home and your HVAC system! What you need is to keep your indoor humidity at a low enough level. What level? How can you do it? Why do you need to? We’ll explain it all.
Ideal Humidity
The Environmental Protection Agency gives a clear answer to the question of what indoor humidity level is ideal for your home: it should fall between 30% and 50%. Most importantly, it should definitely never get higher than 60%. Humidity above that level can cause discomfort, but also a wide range of other problems.
Problems Caused by High Humidity
Excess moisture in the air negatively affects your indoor air quality. It encourages the growth of bacteria and mold, which are terrible to breathe and can cause unsightly and hard-to-clean messes in your home. It also causes swelling of wood, which can make your doors fail to shut properly, allowing your conditioned air to escape and heat to get in. It even makes paint and wallpaper peel!
But when it comes to your HVAC system, humidity can cost you a lot of money. When your indoor humidity level is at 60%, you’ll feel a lot hotter than you would at a humidity of 40% at the exact same temperature. You’ll crank up the AC. It’ll have to run much more of the time than it otherwise would. This will run up your electric bill and cause wear and tear that leads to AC repairs and shortens the life of the system.
Maintaining Ideal Humidity
Air conditioning in itself will reduce your indoor humidity somewhat, as condensation forms on the evaporator coils from the moisture in the air. But relying on your AC for maintaining ideal humidity simply won’t work. It’s not designed to cope with huge amounts of water and could overflow or clog. But it also won’t pull enough moisture out of the air.
Whole house dehumidifiers are installed as part of a home’s HVAC system, drawing moisture out of all the air that passes through the ductwork. This is the best way to reduce overall humidity throughout your home. What if you have a system like this and you’re still struggling with humidity? These systems require maintenance! Don’t forget to have that done every year or two to keep them effective.
Whether you’re looking into whole house dehumidifier installation or getting maintenance for an existing system, don’t forget about humidity while you’re considering AC maintenance and repair or air conditioning installation in Pomaria, SC.
Contact Fulmer Heating & Cooling today for an HVAC and air quality expert in Columbia, SC!