On a typical hot, muggy Dayton summer day or night, a properly sized air conditioner will normally do a pretty good job of keeping your home’s humidity in check. What you’re basically looking for is a relative humidity of 50 percent or lower. Anything higher than this will create problems such as:
- An uncomfortable sticky, stuffy feeling and an air temperature that feels hotter than it really is, causing you to lower your A/C’s temperature setting, increasing energy consumption.
- Mold, mildew, bacteria, fungi and dust mites proliferating, causing bad odors and increased allergy sensitivity.
- Peeling paint and/or wallpaper, warping and swelling of wood and stains on walls and ceilings.
Air conditioner systems are designed for cooling but also dehumidify in the process. Refrigerant-filled copper coils located in your house absorb heat from the indoor air as it’s blown across them by a fan. As this occurs, humidity in the air condenses on the coils, drips down into a collector and is drained away, thereby lowering your home’s humidity.
If your particular air conditioner is too large for home’s specific cooling requirements, the dehumidifying process will be incomplete as the cooling cycle will be too short to allow the majority of air to come in contact with the coils. Installing a dedicated, whole-house dehumidifier into your HVAC system will fix this problem. As an alternative, small, portable dehumidifiers are available to condition the air in a single area such as the bedroom or the basement (where humidity is usually highest).
Dehumidifiers work similarly to A/C units, also employing a fan that blows the air across a set of refrigerant-filled coils. Rather than releasing the absorbed heat outside, as with your A/C, a dehumidifier releases it where the unit is located. On days when the temperature is moderate but humidity is still high, you likely won’t be running your A/C. This is when a dehumidifier becomes even more important for your comfort.
Ace Hardware Home Services, Inc. is a third-generation, family-owned and operated full-service HVAC company serving the Dayton and Springfield areas. Please contact us for any assistance or advice on indoor air quality or air comfort concerns.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Dayton, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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