Cold and flu season is winding down, but Dayton area residents aren’t out of the woods yet. To decrease your chances of contracting the flu and other nasty winter viruses, your home’s humidity level should be in the optimum 30 to 50 percent range. A whole-house humidifier maintains adequate humidity in your home to help prevent flu and other viruses from infecting you and your family.
When a virus is coughed or sneezed into dry air, the protective droplet surrounding it evaporates quickly and leaves the virus airborne for a longer period of time, increasing your chances of becoming infected. In many cases, the mucus in your nasal passages traps the virus and prevents infection. Unfortunately, dry air also dries out the nasal passages, decreasing the effectiveness of this built-in defense mechanism. To complicate matters, dry nasal passages develop tiny cracks that provide an ideal entry point for viruses to infect.
A whole-house humidifier is more effective than a portable unit, allowing you to control the humidity in the whole house instead of individual rooms. A humidistat lets you set the humidity level in your home to your preference. Unlike portable units, whole-house models don’t require constant filling and cleaning, and they’re much quieter to operate.
A whole-house humidifier is attached directly to your HVAC system and hooked up to your home’s plumbing and drainage system. Warm air flows through a plate in the humidifier that contains tiny holes. Water that flows down this plate humidifies your air before it’s sent to your rooms through your ductwork.
While whole-house humidifiers don’t require the intensive maintenance of portable units, it’s a good idea to inspect your humidifier each month when you check your air filter to ensure there are no drips, leaks or large amounts of scale on your system. Annual preventive maintenance, which can be performed at the same time as your yearly furnace tune-up, will keep your unit operating efficiently during the dry season.
For more expert advice about whole-house humidifiers, please contact us at Ace Hardware Home Services, Inc., serving the Dayton area with quality service and a dedicated team.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Dayton, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about Whole-House Humidifiers and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
