Whole-House Humidifiers Net Specific Advantages

With winter coming soon, you know you’ll be running your heating system again. But be careful. While your furnace is heating the air in your home, it’s also dehumidifying it. The winter air is already dry, and if the humidity gets too low, it can cause all sorts of problems—from dry, chapped lips and sore throats to increased allergy and asthma activity and the spread of certain kinds of viruses and bacteria. It can also damage the wood floors and furniture in your home, drying them out and causing them to crack. In order to counteract these effects and maintain moisture in your home, you need a whole-house humidifier.

Unlike smaller, portable humidifiers that work on only a single room at a time, whole-house humidifiers are integrated directly into your HVAC system. They add moisture to the dry air as it leaves your furnace, and that humidified air then circulates through your ducts to your entire home. In addition to improved health and comfort, here are some other benefits of a whole-house humidifier.

• Saving energy: Higher humidity levels make your house feel warmer, so you can set your thermostat to a lower, more energy-efficient setting while still remaining warm and comfortable.
• Humidity regulation: Most single-room units have no way to monitor your home’s humidity levels and can end up making your home muggy and uncomfortable. A whole-house system lets you set the hygrometer (similar to your HVAC system’s thermostat) to your desired humidity level, then it monitors and adjusts humidification to remain at that level throughout the house.
• Easy maintenance: Single-room units need regular cleaning to prevent the buildup of mold and bacteria, and also often require a regular influx of distilled water to run properly. A whole-house humidifier utilizes your existing plumbing system for water at a much lower cost than distilled. As for maintenance, your whole-house system can be serviced annually at the same time as your furnace’s regularly scheduled fall tune-up.

For more tips to prepare you for winter, contact our experts at Sobieski Services. We’re proud to provide quality heating and cooling solutions to Wilmington and the surrounding areas.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Wilmington, Delaware and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC & plumbing systems).

Image Credit: Cayusa