As seasons change, the need to maintain home humidity at proper levels remains the same. Outdoor climate has a major impact on indoor humidity levels and, as summer gives way to fall, it's a good time to evaluate your home environment. Excess humidity inside the house can be a trigger for the growth and spread of active mold. It also spawns mildew, degrades wooden structure, attracts insects and even increases monthly operating costs—as weather cools, a humid house feels more clammy, often resulting in higher furnace settings to compensate.
So how much humidity is too much? In all cases, maintain home humidity below 60%, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In an ideal setting, the EPA recommends no more than 50%. Here are some ways to meet those standards.
- Ventilate humid rooms. Bathing and cooking are major humidity sources. All bathrooms plus the kitchen should have a spot ventilation fan that exhausts humid air through a dedicated duct all the way to the exterior of the house.
- Vent the clothes dryer properly and inspect it regularly. A clothes dryer should vent to the outdoors through a fireproof vent duct approved for this usage. Clean the dryer lint filter before every load; at least once a year check the dryer vent duct to verify that it's clear and unobstructed.
- Make sure the attic is adequately ventilated. An unventilated attic accumulates humid outdoor air which condenses when temperatures drop overnight. High attic humidity can migrate downward into living spaces. Make sure all attic vents are open and unobstructed by insulation or other objects.
- Where high outdoor humidity is a fact of the local climate, invest in a whole-house dehumidifier. Installed in your HVAC ductwork, the whole-house unit continuously extracts water vapor from the entire volume of household air as it passes through the ducts during heating or cooling. Precise relative humidity settings can be input on the humidistat and the unit automatically maintains that setting, 24/7.
Maintain home humidity and avoid mold and moisture damage issues.
