It's not just the heat that could potentially make your time spent indoors miserable. Humidity also plays a role in how hot your home feels to you. Excess humidity can easily leave indoor spaces feeling stuffy and suffocating. Fortunately, you can tackle the problem of excess humidity with the help of your air conditioner.
How Excess Moisture Affects Your Home
As temperatures increase, so does the air's ability to retain moisture in water vapor form. This explains why winter air is often dry and why some summer nights seem so muggy. Everyday activities like cooking, bathing and washing dishes can add additional moisture to air that may already be saturated, resulting in a home that feels hot and stuffy.
It's not just your personal comfort that can be affected by excess moisture. A high-humidity environment is also one where mold and mildew is free to flourish. Places where warm, humid air collides with cooler structures like walls and windows can produce excess condensation, setting the stage for the appearance of brown or black mold and mildew.
In order to achieve maximum comfort in your home throughout the summer, experts recommend keeping its relative humidity level at around 45 to 55 percent.
How Your Air Conditioner Deals with Humidity
The simple act of using your air conditioner can do wonders to relieve your home of excess humidity. Not only does your air conditioner work by pulling the heat out of the surrounding indoor air and circulating that now-cool air back into your indoor spaces, but it also draws excess moisture out of the air.
As the air decreases in temperature, so does its ability to hold large amounts of water vapor. The water vapor eventually transforms into condensate, which is then collected in a nearby drain pan and eventually funneled out of the air conditioner through a nearby drain.
Other Things You Can Do to Combat Excess Humidity
Using your air conditioner is a quick and effective way of removing excess humidity from indoor spaces. However, there are other things you can do to reduce the humidity your home naturally produces:
- Use ventilation to remove humid air. Good ventilation will keep humid air from lingering in your home, thereby preventing mold and mildew from potentially taking hold. In many cases, all it takes is a few open windows and a stiff summer breeze to remove moisture-laden air.
- Curb household activities that generate excess moisture, including bathing and cooking.
- Use a dedicated dehumidifier when dealing with extreme humidity. A standalone dehumidifier works almost the same way as a typical air conditioner, except that the dehumidifier's job is to remove moisture, not heat. Using one of these devices in conjunction with your current A/C system can help lower humidity levels in a relatively short amount of time.
These tips can help you put an end to any excess moisture issues your home might have. For more information, contact companies like Allied Mechanical & Electrical, Inc.
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