Humidity makes it more challenging to achieve comfort, even in an air-conditioned home. Additionally, improperly controlled humidity creates problems with indoor air quality. This guide explores how humidity affects your home’s HVAC performance and what you can do to solve a struggling system.
Humidity and Home Comfort
First, let’s explore how humidity impacts your home’s comfort level. Humidity tends to make the air feel warmer, especially during the summer, because of two phenomena. First, humidity holds heat, so when humid air has skin contact, it feels warmer. Second, that extra airborne moisture prevents sweat from evaporating. It’s that evaporating sweat that helps you cool down, so it inhibits your body’s natural cooling process.
HVAC Systems and Humidity Control
HVAC systems and humidity intersect in two key ways. First, because humidity makes your home feel less comfortable, many people change the thermostat setting, running longer cycles. These drive up energy costs and add wear to your system, causing more repairs and shortening the system’s lifespan.
Additionally, humidity can increase the strain the system experiences during a heating or cooling cycle. Your AC or heat pump relies on the ability to transfer heat either to the air outside in the summer or to your home’s air in the winter. With excessively high humidity, the air can’t absorb the heat as easily, reducing your system’s heating or cooling efficiency.
Effectively Managing Your Home’s Humidity
Even with the high humidity that lingers around southern Florida most of the year, there are simple solutions to help your struggling system. These include keeping your system working well, adding extra humidity control if needed, and considering a system upgrade.
Keeping Your System Maintained
As a secondary benefit, your HVAC system helps control the humidity in your home. During a cooling cycle, the moisture flowing across the cool indoor coils condenses and drains away. However, if your system isn’t circulating air well or functioning optimally, it won’t remove the amount of humidity it could.
Air filters are always the first step of AC and heating maintenance because they need frequent replacement and are easy for most property owners to handle. Neglecting your filters allows them to clog and restrict airflow through the system. This restriction of airflow can prevent your HVAC system from working correctly and impact the humidity level in your home.
Next, keep current on professional HVAC maintenance by scheduling it bi-annually or by joining an HVAC tune-up club that includes maintenance and discounts. Most manufacturers recommend two routine maintenance visits per year, one in the spring for your cooling equipment and one in the fall for your heating equipment.
Finally, repair any problems with your system quickly. Small problems still make a big impact on your HVAC system’s effectiveness, not to mention quickly escalating into larger problems. Less effective and efficient systems have less impact on managing household humidity.
Keeping Your Ducts Cleaned
Part of keeping your system well maintained is also having your ducts cleaned periodically. Buildup in your ducts creates an environment that traps moisture and creates airflow restrictions that reduce the system’s efficiency.
Under normal circumstances, industry professionals recommend having your ducts cleaned every three to five years. If you’ve had water damage or have recently completed any home renovations, you may want to have them cleaned sooner.
Adding a Dehumidifier
If your system is working well and is properly maintained, you may want to consider adding a dehumidifier to your home. If you have a humidity issue in only one area or have a very small home, you may consider adding a standalone unit. However, most homes with multiple rooms have house-wide issues. In these cases, a whole-house dehumidifier may be the better option. This installs as part of your HVAC system and increases the humidity removed during heating or cooling cycles.
Upgrading to a More Efficient System
High-efficiency systems tend to have variable-speed circulating fan motors. This simply means the fan won’t spin as quickly all the time. It also means that the system tends to run nearly constantly while still reducing energy consumption. Constantly circulating air helps to better manage your home’s humidity because it’s always working on it, not allowing it to get high before another cycle starts.
Offering effective indoor air quality solutions, including humidity control, Brisk Air has remained the HVAC service provider of choice for property owners around Coral Springs since 1972. Beyond air quality control, our team also proudly offers heating and air conditioning installation, maintenance and repair and duct cleaning and replacement. Call Brisk Air to schedule a consultation with one of our indoor air quality specialists to explore the best options for better managing your home’s humidity.
