Humidity is a major player in your home comfort and your air conditioner is instrumental in managing the level of humidity in your home.
If you have a well maintained air conditioner that is functioning properly it will remove the humidity from your home. If your system is not working correctly and can’t remove the humidity from the air you could continue to turn the temperature down and down and never reach an ideal level of comfort.
How Do I Tell If It’s Too Humid In My House?
Humidity causes temperatures to feel warmer. If your system cannot effectively remove humidity from your home you may never feel comfortable.
Signs that you have too much humidity at home
- Moist air
- Damp or musty smell
- Fog or condensation on your windows
Potential Issues Caused By Too Much Humidity Indoors
One of the biggest potential problems with too much humidity inside your home is the increased risk of mold growth.
Mold needs two basic things to grow – a food source and a water source:
- Mold needs food – Mold gets its food from the environment. It can feed on living matter or dead organic matter. This can be from decomposing organic material, glue, paint, grease, paper, textiles, or even wood products.
- Mold also needs moisture – Often this comes from obvious sources such as floods, roof leaks, plumbing problems, etc. Simple home and plumbing maintenance can take care of some of these issues. A more nuanced source of moisture for mold growth is humidity and temperature gradients. Mold grows the most between 70 and 90 degrees and above 60% humidity. Which we know in Florida, is quite common all year and more and more true as we make our way toward summer.
How Your AC Unit Can Maintain Healthy Humidity Levels
The misconception about humidifiers is that by increasing the humidity in your home, you are increasing your risk of mold. While logically this seems to be true, we want to debunk some of these myths. Installing a humidifier can help maintain proper humidity levels in your home, preventing mold from being able to thrive.
Mold grows above 60% humidity. Many of the Trane air conditioners, air handlers and heat pumps that Extreme Air & Electric installs have build in humidistats and can regulate humidity to stay at around 45%. Call our office to talk about which model will work the best for you how to maintain optimal humidity levels through sensors, computers and controls.
Dehumidification
The best recommendation for managing the humidity level in your home is to install a air conditioning unit that controls humidity and pair that with a dehumidifier. This is an appliance that works with your air conditioner to remove moisture from the air before it is circulated through your home.
