Next to the actual temperature indoors, humidity levels play the second biggest role in your home’s comfort levels. When humidity levels are high, your home feels warmer, the air feels thicker and your body often feels sweatier. Luckily, there are many things you can do to keep your home’s humidity levels at a manageable level during the humid summers here in the St. Louis area. Today we’re going to help you do that by talking about how to reduce indoor humidity levels!
How to reduce indoor humidity levels during summer
- Run your air conditioner.
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- When your air conditioner is running, it is performing two jobs: cooling your home and dehumidifying your air. As warm and humid air is blown over your air conditioner’s evaporator coils, moisture is released from the air and humidity levels go down. Although we don’t suggest lowering your thermostat setting just so your air conditioner can dehumidify your home, it’s nice to know that your system is helping take care of the problem while it’s operating!
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- Install the right-sized air conditioner. Air conditioners can only effectively dehumidify your air if they are sized properly for your home. Oversized air conditioners have very brief cooling cycles, which doesn’t give them enough time to remove moisture from your home’s air. Always make sure you work with a high-quality contractor like Jerry Kelly Heating, Air Conditioning, Electrical and Plumbing for your air conditioner installations so you can avoid this problem!
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- Use ventilation fans. Your home likely has ventilation fans installed in your bathrooms and kitchen, and possibly a few other rooms. You should run these fans whenever you are doing something in those rooms that produce moisture, such as showering in the bathroom or cooking in the kitchen. Ventilation fans will remove water vapor and moisture from the air and dispense it directly outside so that they don’t affect humidity levels in the rest of your home.
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- Run washer and dryer at night. Your washer and dryer give off a lot of moisture into the air while they are operating. That’s why it’s a good idea to only run these appliances at night when the humidity levels in your home are already lower. In addition, consider cracking the window open in your laundry room while you’re running your washer and dryer to allow humidity to ventilate outdoors.
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- Shorten your showers. When you are showering, water vapor is consistently released into the air. This can seep out of the bathroom and affect the humidity in other parts of your home. You can help reduce the amount of moisture that’s released into the air by shortening your showers during summer. This will also help save energy and water!
- Get a tune-up for your air conditioner. A poorly-maintained air conditioner is not nearly as effective at reducing indoor humidity levels as a well-maintained system. During a tune-up from Jerry Kelly Heating, Air Conditioning, Electrical and Plumbing, we’ll perform tasks like cleaning your cooling coils and inspecting your condensate drain so that your system can effectively remove moisture from the air and drain it out of your home.
If you have any questions about how to reduce indoor humidity levels, or if you’d like a cooling system serviced or installed in your home, contact Jerry Kelly Heating, Air Conditioning, Electrical and Plumbing, your St. Charles, MO, air conditioning contractor. We provide service to the St. Louis area, including towns like Maryland Heights, O’Fallon, and St. Paul, MO.