Anybody who’s spent time in the upper Midwest during the summer knows how muggy it can get. They also know how easily humidity can pervade a home and compromise comfort, even with the air conditioning blasting away. The good news is that you can take a variety of steps to lower humidity in your home, and most of them are relatively simple.
How to Lower Humidity in Your Home
- Ventilation is probably the most important step, particularly in rooms where humidity naturally appears, such as bathrooms, the kitchen, laundry room and basement. These rooms should have exhaust fans that are routed to the outside, rather than another part of the house. Your goal isn’t to shift moist, dirty air from one room to another, but to release it outside.
- Make sure attic ventilation effectively exchanges hot, stale air with fresh outside air via properly planned and placed attic vents, and the right type and amount of attic insulation.
- During cool mornings and evenings, open up doors and windows to flush out stale, moist air. This will also provide natural cooling. Just remember to close the house on especially muggy days and before the cool morning turns into a hot day.
- Use ceiling fans to create cooling air movement. This also will help evaporate moisture on your skin.
- Don’t stay in the shower any longer than necessary, and try not to steam up the bathroom. The humidity will stick around long after you’ve finished your shower or bath.
- Unless the weather outside is mild and relatively dry, run the A/C. A properly maintained air conditioner will both cool your home and remove humidity from the air. But beware; if your A/C is oversized, it will struggle to dehumidify your home.
- Use dehumidifiers to remove excess moisture from your home. If the humidity issue is confined to certain rooms, use portable dehumidifiers. A whole-house dehumidifier can be used for a chronic house-wide humidity issue.
If you’d like to further discuss how to lower humidity in your Twin Cities home, please contact us at Marsh Heating & Air Conditioning.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about humidity and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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