Dehumidifiers

Benefits of Dehumidification

Moisture in the home has many sources: plants, pets, people, cooking, washing, ground water, and infiltration of outside air. Moisture levels above 55% relative humidity can create musty odors and can also stimulate the growth of mold, mildew, bacteria, and other biological allergens.

Your air conditioner is designed to control temperature, not humidity. You need humidity control to maintain comfortable, healthy conditions in your home. To avoid the problems caused by moisture, a properly sized dehumidifier is necessary to maintain relative humidity between 30-50% throughout the home — including the basement. This creates a less hospitable environment for dust mites and other insects from moving in with you. Roaches, silverfish, moths, spiders and centipedes all love a moist environment.

Do you need a dehumidifier?

Start by taking a look around your home. The most noticeable symptoms of excessive humidity may include stains on your walls and ceilings, rotting and weakened wood, mold and fungus, condensation on your windows, peeling wallpaper, blistering paint, and a generally musty, stuffy feeling. We all know what a southeast summer can do to a house that’s too humid. Not to mention, lower humidity levels in the summer helps keep you feeling cooler.

In addition to those somewhat obvious signs of humidity, there are also some more subtle conditions you can watch out for. For example, you may want to look into a purchasing a dehumidifier if your doors, cabinets or windows are sticking, or if your floors are especially creaky. When wood absorbs moisture, it swells. This pushes joints apart and can loosens screws and nails. This can compromises your home’s strength. While your noisy stairs might be a simple nuisance right now, if humidity is the underlying issue, your problems could get worse over an extended period of time.

Using a dehumidifier improves indoor air quality in ways which are not immediately obvious. Dehumidifiers can help lessen the effects of common allergies to dust mites, fungus and mold. If there is too much humidity in the air in your home, it can encourage the growth of these allergens.

Even if you don’t have allergies, preventing mold growth is a good reason to consider getting a dehumidifier. Mold only requires a small amount of moisture to grow, and it can begin to grow in your home as soon as one of the airborne spores finds a damp surface. A mold problem in your home can cause serious illness. Once mold shows up, it is hard to get rid of and can seriously damage whatever it’s decided to live on. The easiest strategy is to just keep it from showing up at all.

A whole-home dehumidifier is installed as part of your home’s heating and cooling system. It works in conjunction with your air conditioner, or independently as needed, to remove the ideal amount of moisture to solve the above problems. But not so much that your home becomes too dry.

Maintaining control over the amount of both mold and dust mites in your home has a huge effect on the quality of air that you and your family breathe. Mold spores are very light, and therefore easily airborne and very likely to be inhaled, as is dust mite allergen. Making sure that less of these allergens are present in the first place ensures that less of them will make their way into the air and into your body to incite an allergy attack.

Other advantages of whole house dehumidifiers include:

  • Automatic humidity sensing: allows for better whole-home monitoring and control of humidity
  • Convenient, quiet operation: away from your living space
  • Low maintenance: simple annual filter cleaning
  • Fresh air ventilation: automatically removes or dilutes polluted air

Find the Right Dehumidifiers For You

All homes need humidity control. And some southern climates need it year round. We offer whole-home dehumidifiers that meet your family’s needs and are suitable for your home. We will be happy to recommend a solution that is right for you. Call us to learn how to achieve total comfort in your home today.