You probably think of humidity as the unpleasant sticky or muggy feeling you often experience during the summer months. However, humidity is actually helpful during the winter months, so long as it’s managed properly. With the right amount of warm air in your home, you can avoid potential damage to your home’s interior, as well as see a few health benefits. Here our residential AC experts at Air Products & Services explain why indoor humidity is needed during the fall and winter.
It reduces electrostatic shock. Lower humidity levels in your home mean an increase in static electricity due to the dry air that allows electrons to collect in pockets. Simply warming up cold air with your heating unit during the fall and winter doesn’t add moisture to your indoor air; in fact, this makes it even drier, which ensures a swift crackle of electricity every time you touch a doorknob or your pet.
You get added health benefits. During the winter months, it’s common to get flu shots or to keep your heating installation on all the time in order to stay as warm as possible to avoid coming down with colds and other illnesses. Dry air is known to aggravate respiratory issues, as well as cause feelings of nasal congestion due to “nasal cooling”. Low humidity can also cause skin to become dry, scaly or itchy during the colder months due to the lack of moisture.
Controlling humidity levels in your home during the fall and winter can help keep you and your family healthy. When the humidity in your home is increased to the correct comfort range, your skin and eyes won’t dry out and become deprived of their protective tear film.
To ensure that there’s ample humidity in your home during these seasons, we recommend using a portable room humidifier. Better yet, have a professional install a whole-home humidifier in your home’s HVAC system. You can also place water basins near your heating system to help keep the air from becoming too dry, as well as live houseplants.
The residential and commercial heating and AC maintenance services offered at Air Products & Services are some of the best in the area. Reach us at (818) 989-2030 or submit an online form. We serve Tarzana and neighboring areas in CA , so contact us today!