Top

Humidity Can Do More Than Just Make You Feel Hotter

Mold

You may have heard that we dogs don’t sweat like you humans do. I can tell you, it’s true! We still need to release heat from our bodies when it’s hot, but we go about it a different way. Instead of sweating all through our skin, we sweat through our noses and our paw pads. But mostly, we get rid of all the extra heat in our body by panting. And getting rid of heat is the whole point of sweating!

And this brings me to my important topic today: humidity. We get plenty of that here in East Tennessee during the summer, and it makes the hot weather feel even hotter. This is because it’s harder to release heat through sweat when there’s already too much moisture in the air.

But did you know that humidity can cause other problems than just making the weather muggier? When indoor relative humidity climbs above 60%, you can face trouble like this:

Mold and Mildew Growth

Nobody wants mold and mildew in their homes. Both are unpleasant to look at and create stinky odors. Mildew can eat right into drywall and inflict damage to the walls and ceilings in your house. Mold can do this as well, but some types of mold (such as black mold) can place harmful spores into the air that cause respiratory illnesses.

Other Health Troubles

Aside from the danger from black mold, high humidity creates other health complications for people in your house because moisture is a breeding ground for many harmful microorganisms and dust mites. High humidity can lead to sleeping problems, nose and eye irritation, and a rise in asthma and allergy attacks.

Damage to Electronics

You know that water isn’t something you want in contact with electronic devices—and this includes the moisture in the air. In fact, humidity is one of the top enemies of electronics. Condensation forming along electronic devices leads to corrosion and short-circuiting, and it will lower the service life of most electronic appliances.

Damage to Your Furniture and Possessions

I already mentioned how mildew can chew right through walls and ceilings. Mildew is also terrible for carpets, couches, and other upholstered furnishings. High moisture also ruins the effectiveness of insulation, causes paint to peel, decays wood, corrodes joints, and weakens floorboards.

That’s a whole lot of trouble from high humidity! If you want to stop icky mold, bugs, sickness, rotten walls, and busted equipment, you only have to call us for installation of a whole-house dehumidifier. This type of dehumidifier allows you to balance relative humidity in your house at an ideal level of around 45%. (Air that’s too dry causes its own set of problems).

And remember that the best benefit of balanced humidity during the summer is that you’ll feel cooler! When you sweat less, that means you won’t have to spend as much money running your air conditioning system.

The team at Russell & Abbott offers all the HVAC services in Knoxville, TN you may need for the spring and summer, including indoor air quality services.

Stay cool (and dry, but not too dry),

Olive

Categories: 
Related Posts
  • Leaky Ducts Unleashed: Sniffing Out the Secrets from a Pup’s Perspective! Read More
  • Your Guide to Spring Cleaning Read More
  • Love is in the Air 💕 Read More
/