Sanford, FL has a subtropical climate. The region is naturally warm and humid throughout much of the year. Maintaining a dry living space is an ongoing challenge, but it’s also important to avoid overdoing it. Every home should have a balanced amount of moisture in the air. Too much moisture in your indoor air can lead to widespread mold and mildew, and having too little can result in warped building materials, irritated nasal passages, and more. Read on to discover the acceptable range for indoor humidity and how you can maintain it in your home.
Recommendations for Indoor Humidity
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it’s best to keep indoor relative humidity between 30% and 50%. However, this recommendation isn’t feasible for people in subtropical climates like Sanford’s. Other recommendations target relative humidity between 40% and 60%. If your indoor humidity dips much lower than 40%, your indoor air quality (IAQ) will suffer. The EPA also notes that at 60% or higher, excess moisture creates the perfect conditions for mold and other pathogens to flourish.
What Problems Does Low Humidity Cause?
Although low humidity isn’t a common problem in Sanford, it can easily occur in your home if you’re fighting excess humidity on multiple fronts. Extracting too much moisture from your indoor air can be just as detrimental to your household as having elevated humidity.
With nighttime temperatures in Florida occasionally dipping below freezing during the winter months, many locals have gas-fired furnaces for cold-weather heating. Gas-fired furnaces produce heat with temperatures as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit. This has a drying effect. Thus, extended furnace use during the winter months when outdoor humidity has already taken a noticeable dive could lead to dry nasal passages, frequent nighttime nosebleeds, and other dry-air health issues.
Maintaining relative humidity levels below 40% can also result in:
- Warped floorboards and subfloors
- Split or cracked millwork
- Electronics damage
- Wood shrinkage
People living in chronically low-humidity homes may have chapped lips; dry eyes, skin, and hair; and frequent bouts with general skin irritation.
Having a modest amount of moisture in your indoor air supports an acceptably high indoor air quality. Airborne moisture weighs dust, dander, and other allergens down so that they settle on surfaces for easy cleaning.
What Are the Most Likely Causes of Low Humidity in Sanford?
In autumn, spring, and summer, many Sanford residents run their heat pumps or air conditioners nonstop. These units extract excess humidity with each cooling cycle. Older cooling equipment does so without the ability to promote balanced humidity. If your air conditioner or heat pump has been around for 20 years or more, upgrading to a new system will make it easier to avoid overly dry indoor air. Many new ACs and heat pumps measure humidity and extract excess moisture accordingly.
Portable Dehumidifiers
Low-cost, portable dehumidifiers often lack the ability to promote balanced humidity as well. Many of these appliances extract moisture non-stop, even when the indoor air is already dry. If you have multiple portable humidifiers set up throughout your home, there’s a good chance that your indoor humidity is as low as 40% or lower at certain times of the year and certain hours of the day.
What Happens When Indoor Humidity Rises Too High?
When your indoor humidity reaches or exceeds 60%, the interior of your home could have a heavy, muggy, and all-around oppressive feel. Wet, humid air feels significantly hotter than dry air. As a result, people living in high-humidity homes often run their cooling systems longer and maintain lower thermostat settings. Not only does this raise home energy bills and increase collective carbon footprints, but it often does so without providing much relief.
Consistently high humidity creates the conditions for mold and makes mold significantly more difficult to treat. Among the first and most important steps in successful mold remediation is bringing elevated humidity under control.
Factors That Increase Indoor Humidity
When it’s naturally humid outside, it’s also naturally humid indoors. Homeowners throughout much of Florida battle high indoor humidity nearly all the time. However, several building and household-specific factors can add additional moisture to your indoor air.
Overly Airtight Homes and Poor Ventilation
The “V” in HVAC stands for ventilation. Ventilation is the one element of residential climate control that’s most commonly overlooked. Although sealing up air leaks to create a tight, efficient home envelope saves energy, overly tight home envelopes can compromise the health and comfort of building interiors and keep excess humidity trapped indoors.
In Sanford, homeowners can enjoy fresher, cleaner indoor air by installing energy recovery ventilators (ERVs) or whole-house fans. Upgrading and properly maintaining existing mechanical ventilation helps as well. If your indoor humidity is constantly at 60% or higher, insufficient ventilation is a likely cause.
Unchecked Plumbing Leaks
Not every plumbing leak will leave a standing pool of water on your floor. You may have slow leaks hidden behind your drywall, just beneath your slab, or in other inconspicuous areas. Even a single leaky faucet can have an impact on your indoor humidity. The best way to find and fix unchecked plumbing leaks is by scheduling a whole-house plumbing inspection or leak detection service.
Dirty Drains and Blocked Sewer Lines
If you have dirty, slow-moving drains throughout your home, much of your wastewater could be evaporating and adding moisture to your indoor air before it exits your pipes. Having your drains professionally cleaned every one to two years will keep wastewater flowing and make it easier to keep indoor moisture in check.
Dirty Exhaust Vents
All bathrooms should have functional windows or overhead exhaust fans. When people take hot, steamy baths or showers, these features remove excess moisture before it migrates to other areas. Make sure that everyone in our household uses exhaust fans or windows each time they take baths or showers. It’s also best to keep exhaust fans running or windows open for at least 30 minutes after residents turn bathroom taps off. To keep your bathroom exhaust fans working optimally, you should inspect and clean them every three to six months.
Your range hood fan in the kitchen is just as important as your bathroom exhaust fans for humidity control. This fan removes steam from all your stove-top cooking projects. Range hood fan screens can quickly develop tough, tacky accumulations of grease and oil that limit their effectiveness. You need to remove and clean your range hood’s fan screen every two to four weeks.
Large Household Sizes and Lots of Indoor Activity
Homes with lots of active household members tend to have higher indoor humidity than homes that house just one or two people. Although your HVAC system offers limited humidity support, you could require additional interventions if you have a large family under your roof.
How to Control Your Indoor Humidity Without Overdoing It
The best way to moderate humidity in Sanford is by working with a licensed HVAC company. This way, you can avoid extracting too much moisture from your indoor air and investing in unnecessarily costly equipment. Whole-house dehumidifiers promote balanced humidity by both measuring indoor moisture and extracting it only as needed. Surprisingly, these integrated HVAC accessories are often less costly than many high-functioning, portable units.
Whole-house dehumidifiers are installed on or in HVAC air ducts. They extract excess moisture during HVAC operation and seamlessly supplement the humidity control supplied by ACs, heat pumps, and condensing furnaces.
In many Sanford homes, simply replacing outdated HVAC equipment solves the problem. Even in Sanford, high-functioning heat pumps, ACs, and condensing furnaces can do a pretty good job of keeping building interiors dry.
Since 1986, our team at American Air, Plumbing, and Electrical has proudly served residents of Sanford, FL with expert plumbing, electrical, and HVAC service. We also offer home generators, water heaters, and preventive HVAC maintenance plans.
If you need help regulating your indoor air quality and humidity, contact American Air, Plumbing, and Electrical today.
