Managing Ideal Indoor Humidity Levels All-Year-Round

Indoor humidity is one of the most neglected aspects of indoor climate control, and thus, it may become a major source of discomfort!

Do you ever find that even when you set your AC to the ideal room temperature, you still feel uncomfortable? This could be due to an imbalance in your home’s humidity levels. On a hot and humid day, your body’s temperature may be higher than the actual temperature due to the added discomfort caused by the humidity.

Ideal indoor humidity improves home comfort and significantly influences mood and productivity.

Read on to learn everything you need to know about indoor humidity, along with tips and tricks to control indoor moisture levels throughout the year.

How to Check Indoor Humidity Levels?

Humidity measures the amount of water vapor in the air. The higher the water content, the higher the humidity. The amount of moist air varies depending on the season, climate conditions, and the area in which you live.

Humidity levels usually remain higher in the summer as warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. 

• The easiest way to measure indoor humidity is by purchasing a hygrometer. It is a device that measures the moisture content in the air. All you have to do is place the device in different areas of your home since the levels can vary. For instance, the kitchen, bathrooms, and basement tend to be more humid than other areas in your home. The hygrometer will show your home’s humidity level in a percentage.
• You can easily conduct a DIY test to measure indoor humidity if you have no special equipment. For example, you can know if your home has high or low levels of moist air with an ice cube test. You have to place two to three ice cubes into a glass of water and stir them. After three to four minutes, if moisture is not formed outside the glass, it means the air is too dry. Conversely, if moisture appears on the outside of the glass, it means the air is too moist.
• With technological innovation, several other smart devices now have built-in humidity sensors. With these, you can check, monitor, and control your humidity levels using your phone. For example, by using smart thermostats for your mini-splits or smart thermostats for your central HVAC system, you can check your home’s humidity levels and implement settings to achieve your ideal indoor humidity levels.

Best Indoor Humidity Level

The ideal indoor humidity level should be between 30% and 50%. The exact answer depends on several factors. It will mostly depend on the season, what garments you wear, any special health conditions that you may have, if you have pets at home, etc.

Ideal Indoor Humidity in Summer

The ideal indoor humidity level in summer should be around 40-50%, depending on the outside temperature. However, keeping the humidity below 50% is advisable to avoid mold and bacteria growth in your home.

Ideal Indoor Humidity in Winter

Humidity levels tend to drop in winter as cold air cannot hold that much moisture. Plus, your heating system running all day also removes the air moisture, leading to lower-than-ideal humidity levels. To maintain a comfortable environment, aim for a 30-40% humidity range.

Ideal Indoor Humidity

When indoor humidity levels are perfectly balanced, they automatically affect the temperature of your surroundings. Lowering humidity can make your room cooler in summer, while increasing it can cause warmth during the colder seasons. This greatly aids your HVAC systems in maintaining the temperature inside your home, making it more energy-efficient and saving utility costs.

To make achieving optimal indoor humidity more manageable, you can follow this ideal indoor humidity chart. This way, you will know exactly which indoor humidity setting you need to maintain depending on the outside temperature.

What are the Drawbacks of Poor Humidity Levels?

Anything beyond a specific limit can be harmful. So, extreme high and low humidity levels have their own set of disadvantages that you should be aware of.

Disadvantages of high humidity levels	Disadvantages of low humidity levels
Stuffy, poorly ventilated rooms can be uncomfortable, making you feel sticky as sweat doesn’t evaporate easily on humid days.	Extreme low humidity levels over an extended period cause dry, scaly, and irritated skin.
High water vapor can cause respiratory problems, trigger allergies, and worsen asthma symptoms.	Low humidity levels result in dry air, which irritates nasal passage and throat, causing inflammation.
High humidity can disrupt sleep by increasing wakefulness, reducing REM sleep, and causing excessive sweating.	The eyes tend to be drier and can get easily irritated in low-humidity atmospheres because the evaporation of tears from our eye tissue surfaces increases.
It can often lead to condensation on walls, furniture, and windows.	Low humidity increases static electricity, causing issues like hair clinging together and feeling shocks when touching objects.
High humidity promotes the rapid growth of mold, dust mites, and fungi, which can damage walls, furniture, and carpets.	Wooden furniture and flooring can crack over time due to moisture loss in low-humidity conditions.

How to Achieve Ideal Indoor Humidity in Summer? 

As mentioned above, high humidity levels pose severe problems and must be tackled to enjoy a comfortable atmosphere. Here are seven effective methods for lowering humidity indoors.

1. Use a Dehumidifier

A dehumidifier is most effective at higher humidity levels and best for regions where the temperature is warmer. It works to pull moisture from your surroundings and collects the water in a removable tank to maintain the ideal indoor humidity in summer.

A portable dehumidifier will work fine for individual rooms, but if the humidity in your home is higher than 50%, consider adding a whole-house dehumidifier.

You can opt for a smart home dehumidifier that can be conveniently controlled through Wi-Fi. With a few taps on your phone, you can set mode, speed, and humidity levels. You can also connect your simple dehumidifier with a smart thermostat for mini-split, such as Cielo Breez Max, for smart capabilities, as long as it comes with an IR remote control.

Here’s how to identify whether your home needs a humidifier or a dehumidifier.

2. Rely on Your HVAC System

Your air conditioner can also remove extra humidity from your home. The major difference between a dehumidifier and an air conditioner is that the latter can also cool down your home.

Some air conditioners have a dry mode that is super handy in humid environments. In this mode, moisture is captured when the air passes through the AC, and dry air is released. You can run your AC in this mode for a couple of hours until you feel that all the extra moisture has been removed.

To automatically monitor and maintain ideal humidity levels, it is best that you use a smart thermostat that works with central or mii-splits. Cielo Breez smart thermostats have a Comfy Mode that lets you maintain the perfect humidity for your home. You just have to set your preferred range, and it will take care of the rest. This is an excellent option if you don’t face severe humidity problems.

If you still feel stuffy with the air-con turned on, your unit may need to replace your system. An HVAC system that is nearing its end will struggle to maintain your preferred temperature and remove adequate humidity. An HVAC system lasts, on average, 10-15 years. Upgrading your unit to a more efficient one will help maintain ideal indoor humidity levels in your home.

Related: 8 Ways to Extend the Average Life of AC Unit– How to Make Your HVAC System Last Longer?

3. Take Cold Showers

Who doesn’t love taking long, hot showers? Hence, it will be no surprise if you’re not ready to give them up.

Unfortunately, you may not have noticed, but hot showers expose your home to moisture and are the enemy of home comfort when humidity is already very high.

This doesn’t mean you should switch to ice-cold baths, but lowering your showers’ temperature by just a few degrees will not add as much steam to the air. Also, because cold showers produce less moisture than hot showers, your bathrooms will be less susceptible to mold growth.

4. Grow Plants That Absorb Humidity

Utilizing houseplants can be truly helpful in several ways. First, most of them act as dehumidifiers by naturally absorbing water from air through their leaves, allowing you to benefit from them to lower humidity. In addition, they can amplify the aesthetics of any space.

However, remember that not all plants are suitable for lower humidity levels, so you must be careful while choosing. Some plants you can have indoors include Boston Fern, Orchids, Cactus, and English Ivy. Here’s a detailed list of humidity-absorbing plants that can help cool down your house in summer.

Exhaust fans are already present in most homes. Bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans can be vital in maintaining a low humidity level. They remove the excess humidity added to the air by showering, boiling water, and other such activities. If your home doesn’t have these fans, investing in them will help maintain optimal indoor humidity.

5. Install Exhaust Fans

Exhaust fans are already present in most homes. Bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans can be vital in maintaining low humidity. They remove the excess moisture added to the air during showering, boiling water, and other such activities. 

If your home doesn’t have these fans, investing in them will help maintain optimal indoor humidity.

6. Open Windows

Air circulation greatly reduces a moist home’s stuffy, sticky sensation, so you should regularly open windows and doors to let in the fresh air. This helps air to flow freely, creating a balance around your living space.

7. Dry Laundry Outdoors

With the exception of unfavorable climate conditions, there is no reason to hang wet clothes to dry inside when you’re already facing a humidity problem.

The evaporating water from your clothes has nowhere to go except entering your home’s environment. So, you should dry your laundry outside to let the unwanted moisture stay out of your accommodation!

8. Insulate Your Basement Floor

If your basement has an unfinished dirt floor, the moisture there can be really high, and it can seep into your home. You can tackle this solution by insulating it with a vapor barrier. A vapor barrier is a material that reduces the rate at which the moisture moves. Polyethylene, metal, and glass sheets act as good vapor barriers. You can cover the floor with a plastic sheet and use big rocks to hold it in place.

Related: Home Insulation – Get Rid of All Your Heating & Cooling Problems

9. Replace Your Rugs

Even though they are regularly neglected, carpets do more harm than most people realize. Apart from adding visual allure and cushioning floors, carpets absorb and retain the air’s moisture.

They might be discreetly adding to your home’s stuffy air. Spending extended time in compromised indoor air quality is detrimental to your health and can cause issues like sick building syndrome. 

How to Achieve Ideal Indoor Humidity Levels in Winter?

Low humidity levels are as much of a problem as high humidity levels. So, let’s look at the top 8 ways to deal with dry winter air.

1. Use a Humidifier

A portable humidifier diffuses moisture into the air to avoid dryness that can irritate different parts of your body. It can be incredibly viable for treating dry skin, nose, throat, and lips, particularly in winter. It also helps ease some of the symptoms of flu or cold.

If you live in the Southwestern United States, where the environment is extremely dry, a whole-house humidifier is better than a portable one.

Related: Where to Put Humidifier in Your Home & Other Frequently Asked Questions

However, overusing a humidifier may also be a problem. Hence, it is best to invest in a smart home humidifier that automatically controls a room’s atmosphere depending on the schedules or preferences you set using its smart features.

You also need to clean your portable humidifiers regularly, or they can become breeding grounds for mold or bacteria.

2. Take Hot Showers

Taking long showers and baths can lead to dry and patchy skin; hence, they are not recommended. But if you act smart, you can use this steam to your benefit by letting it enter your room.

Simply leaving the water in the tub and opening the bathroom door will help you humidify the indoor air without spending hours in a shower.

By allowing the water to evaporate in the air, you’ll have moist indoor air and, hence, a comfortable environment around your living space.

3. Dry Laundry Indoors

If you don’t feel like investing in a humidifier, you can alternate ways to diffuse water vapors in the air.

For starters, you can start by drying your laundry indoors. This way, you’ll be able to increase the humidity level while saving up money on drying and heating expenses.

4. Air-Dry Your Dishes

You can use the same principle while doing your dishes. After your final wash cycle, leave your dishwasher open and let the hot, damp air fill your home while the dishes air dry.

Adding this technique to your daily routine will save you cash and fill the air with the required moisture.

5. Cook Without Lids

You can also benefit by utilizing your stovetop for cooking and boiling water. Isn’t that cool?  

Steam will discharge directly into the air while you cook food or boil water, improving your home’s humidity level.

6. Grow Houseplants

Plants are great, and we all know that! But are you realizing their maximum potential?

If not, then in addition to lightening up your space, they can improve the humidity and the air quality inside your home. This is because they add moisture to the air through a cycle called evapotranspiration. There are plenty of humidifying plants that you can choose from, including Jade Plants, Lady palms, and Rubber Plants.  

7. Switch Your Heating System

Forced-air heating systems, such as heat pumps or furnaces, can also be the culprit, as they introduce warm, dry air into your house. 

In this case, switching your home heating unit can help. A radiant floor heating system, for instance, uses infrared radiation to transfer heat from a hot surface, such as resistive wires or hot water pipes, to your home. Unlike the forced air system, this system doesn’t suck up moisture and doesn’t negatively impact humidity levels.

Related: Radiant Heat Vs. Forced Air – Which Is the Better Option?

8. Add an Indoor Fountain

Any water source inside your home will help increase humidity levels. Hence, installing an indoor fountain will enhance the beauty of your home and moisten the dry air.

Ideal Humidity Levels for Maximum Comfort

Ideal indoor humidity levels are vital to creating a healthy and comfortable environment. Maintaining the recommended 30-50% range can help prevent issues like respiratory problems, allergies, mold, dust mites, and damaged furniture. Measures such as investing in humidifiers or dehumidifiers, growing houseplants, and improving ventilation can help achieve ideal humidity indoors all year round.