Humans naturally cool their body through perspiration: as sweat evaporates from the skin it removes heat and cools the body down. Likewise, reducing and maintaining the relative humidity (RH) in your home will increase the level of comfort. As property development becomes more energy efficient (tighter envelopes, thicker insulation, higher efficiency appliances, and utility-bill-friendly windows), an escape route for added moisture has become essential.
The indoor comfort of your home or property can easily be improved by controlling the amount of moisture in the air. High humidity makes air feel warmer than the displayed thermostat temperature. For most people, the ideal humidity for homes and other properties falls between 30 – 50% RH. On the other hand, high humidity levels will not only be uncomfortable, but will also make it easier for mold to reproduce. Once mold begins to grow, it can spready quickly and appear almost anywhere.
Here, we share some tips for controlling humidity in houses and other properties.
What Causes High Humidity in a House?
- Bathing | people and pets
- Cooking | boiling water, steaming vegetables, making coffee
- Cleaning | mopping floors, scrubbing bathrooms, wiping countertops
- Laundering | washing and drying clothes
- Other | breathing, perspiration and watering plants
Balancing Thermal Comfort
Humidity will affect the comfort of your home or property year-round, and indoor humidity management for every season will increase thermal comfort. Simply put, thermal comfort is the feeling when someone is not too hot or too cold.1 Many people associate thermal comfort directly with air temperature, but there are a variety of factors to consider including movement, clothing, and personal preference.
ASHRAE 55 defines comfort as “combinations of indoor space environment and personal factors that will produce thermal environmental conditions acceptable to 80 percent or more of the occupants within a space.”2 Since thermal comfort is subjective, personal expectations have the largest effect on comfort. In other words, while the best humidity level for home environments is 30 – 50% RH, exactly where your property should fall within that range is up to you.
What Is a Comfortable Humidity Indoors?
While you may not be able to put a number on it without first measuring it via a hygrometer, you can probably determine your indoor humidity comfort range by feel. During summer, you’ll want to remove humidity from home environments, allowing the indoor temperature setting to be raised which will directly offset the cost of energy consumed to remove moisture. In other words, indoor air feels cooler with less humidity. For comfortable indoor humidity during the summer months, interior relative humidity should never exceed 60%. (See Figure 1, below)
With that in mind, it’s still important to maintain RH during cooler months because cold air holds less moisture before it becomes saturated. This means in winter months the relative humidity level in houses and other properties should be kept as low as possible, but always above 30%.
Indoor Humidity Comfort Chart
Figure 1: During summer months, high humidity makes air feel warmer than the temperature displayed on a thermostat.3
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Once moisture enters a building, effort is required to remove humidity from home environments.
Supplemental dehumidification will complement the capabilities of any cooling system to keep indoor humidity levels consistent. In 2012, Innovative Dehumidifier Systems designed a hands-free dehumidifier to help resolve the problems associated with high humidity in multi-family apartments. Since its creation, the benefits have been applied to a range of properties including student housing, military homes, senior living, hotels, historic buildings, luxury condominiums, and more. The wall-mounted dehumidifier can remove up to 29.5 pints of moisture per day in smaller spaces. IW25 IN Wall Dehumidifier/On Wall Dehumidifier includes a lock-out control system; a digital RH control is concealed behind a tamper-proof cover, eliminating tenants’ control of dehumidification. Innovative Dehumidifier Systems offers hands-free indoor humidity management, with hands-on customer service.
Sources
- Thermal Comfort https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/thermal-comfort
- Exploring thermal comfort acceptance criteria in energy modeling https://www.ashrae.org/File%20Library/Conferences/Specialty%20Conferences/2018%20Building%20Performance%20Analysis%20Conference%20and%20SimBuild/Papers/C036.pdf
- How Humidity Affects Comfort https://www.contractingbusiness.com/service/article/20871274/how-humidity-affects-comfort
