One Way To Check If The Humidity Levels In Your Home Are Good

Getting the humidity right in your home can be extremely tricky. If it's too low, the air will feel arid. Your family will likely start to complain about itchy skin, dry eyes, and static electricity in their clothes. In extreme cases, low humidity can even cause your hardwood floors to split and crack. If the humidity in your home is too high, the problems can be much more serious. You're likely to be plagued by muggy air and dust mites. It can also cause window condensation that rots sills and mold growth that quickly takes over walls, ceilings, floors, and even furniture. To find out the best way to check if the humidity levels in your home are good, we spoke with Kelsey Hei, Filtration and Indoor Air Quality Specialist at 3M.

"According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the optimal indoor humidity is between 30% to 50%," Hei told House Digest during her exclusive interview. "One easy way to check the humidity level in a home is with a humidity monitor or air quality monitor that also includes relative humidity," she said. Because warm air can hold more moisture than cold air, relative humidity (RH) takes air temperature into consideration. High RH is one common explanation as to why your house is humid even with the air conditioning on. Hei went on to explain that humidity monitors "are generally digital and will provide the percent of relative humidity in the home." Devices like the ThermoPro digital indoor room thermometer let you track the RH in your own home for under $15.

Although there are personal comfort and structural reasons why you'll want to avoid having too little humidity in your home, the opposite end of the spectrum can be just as serious. "Too much humidity in a home can lead to mold growth," Kelsey Hei said during her exclusive interview with House Digest. Mold grows anywhere there's persistent moisture. It's not picky about the surface, which means mold is just as happy growing on damp walls or carpet as it is on hidden insulation or inside your ductwork. If you start to notice a musty smell, peeling paint, or even a lingering cough, it's important to identify mold in your home and get rid of it for good.

Ideally, you should continuously check the humidity levels to avoid both comfort and structural issues in the first place. "If humidity levels are low in your home, a few great options are to use a humidifier and keep the bathroom door open when showering," Hei told us. The air quality specialist also recommended hang-drying your laundry inside or raising humidity by placing bowls of water around your home. "All of these will help to add more moisture in your home, which will help to increase the humidity," she explained.

"If you have too much humidity in the air, using a dehumidifier will help to reduce the amount of moisture in the air," Kelsey Hei said during her exclusive interview with House Digest. Dehumidifiers, such as the Waykar Energy Star dehumidifier, work by using a fan to pull moist air into the machine before passing it over cooled coils that create condensation that drips into a reservoir before reheating the air and returning it to the room. Along with considering the moisture levels and overall size of your room, there are some common mistakes to avoid when dehumidifying your home. Proper placement and paying close attention to your unit's filters are steps you shouldn't overlook. 

Whether you're adding or removing humidity from your home, pay particular attention to your device's filter. You should always use distilled or purified water in a humidifier to avoid an accumulation of white dust from the minerals in tap water. Although researchers haven't concluded that using tap water is harmful to your health, the white dust particles can be difficult to see with the naked eye and interfere with your unit's efficiency unless you clean or change out your filter more frequently. It will be easier to tell when the filter in your dehumidifier needs to be cleaned, because as it pulls air into the unit, the filter will collect dust, pollen, and other particles that make it look grimy.