High humidity levels in a home can be a dangerous, if innocuous-seeming thing. Who hasn’t dealt with a little excess humidity, after all? We’ve all been to Florida for a family trip to Disney World or suffered through a particularly brutal stretch of July weather and made it through just fine.
But when it comes to the inside of your home, it’s a much different story. High humidity levels can lead to mold growth, damage to wood and other home fixtures, as well as discomfort and musty odors thanks to mold spores. High humidity can also create an environment where dust mights and allergens can thrive. These are all especially true when the home is located in a naturally humid climate. In these areas, many people turn to dehumidifiers to mitigate the humidity.
But portable dehumidifiers, such as the kind you’d buy at Target or Lowe’s, only address humidity in a limited space, usually just a single room. That makes smaller humidifiers ideal for unusually damp basements or remediation after water damage, but when it comes to improving comfort and safety throughout the home, they fall short. And rather than installing portable dehumidifiers in every room in the house, many homeowners are turning to whole-home dehumidifiers to control their house’s humidity and comfort levels.
The Benefits of a Whole-Home Dehumidifier
Whole-home dehumidifiers are centralilzed systems that can control, as the name suggests, the humidity levels throughout the home rather than within a single area. In addition to the broader scope that they address, these units also work smarter, as they can integrate directly with your home’s HVAC unit. This integration allows humidity levels across the entire home to be carefully monitored and then regulated when a room moves outside of the preferred humidity range. Just as some rooms in a home heat or cool faster than others, the rate of humidity change is not consistent throughout various rooms in most homes—since a whole-home dehumidifier monitors each “zone” individually, humid periods in one room can be addressed without over-drying out other rooms.
Consistent low humidity levels increase comfort year-round, and make homes feel cooler in the warmer months. Low humidity achieved with whole-home dehumidifiers also improves indoor air quality (reducing dust mites, mold, and mildew), making the air cleaner to breathe and less irritating for those who suffer from allergies or asthmatic conditions.
Finally, whole-home dehumidifiers can directly increase energy efficiency and thus reduce home energy costs. Humidity plays a major role in how a temperature “feels”; 70 degrees and dry feels considerably different than 70 degrees and humid indoors. The latter feels hotter in the summer, so by making sure that humidity levels are low, homeowners can still feel comfortable while leaving their thermostat a little higher than they might otherwise. This means your HVAC system will have to work less, using less energy but also reducing strain on your unit—potentially increasing the longevity of your cooling system, saving costs in the long run as well as the short term.
Professional Installation of Whole-Home Dehumidifiers
As with many complex home systems, professional installation of an interconnected dehumidifier is highly recommended. A specific expertise is needed to ensure that the system integrates properly with your current HVAC unit and that it operates as designed, efficiently, and safely. This requires highly detailed know-how, so do not try this at home!
Our certified HVAC technicians can set up your whole-home dehumidifier in a way that is optimally placed in your home and works in harmony with your current HVAC system. We also offer ongoing maintenance and repair services—essential in keeping dehumidifiers working efficiently for the long run.
If you’re ready to expand comfort to every room and improve the air quality and energy efficiency in your home, don’t hesitate—contact us today and our experts will discuss the whole-home dehumidifier options that make sense for your home and budget.
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