Or you could choose to air-dry clothes indoors. You could turn down the heat or boil a pot of tea on the stove. Think about investing in some pot plants too as they release moisture into the air. All of these actions will increase the humidity in your home. If you have persistently dry air, you might want to consider installing air conditioning or a humidifier to get the conditions right. An indoor air quality monitor will provide real-time and historical data on humidity, as well as other metrics, so you know exactly where problems exist and where they could potentially arise.
The most advanced air quality tech. Complete control over the air you breathe and the power to change it. Keep your family safe from the effects of allergens, pollution, wildfire smoke, viruses and more. Thousands of Radon sensors across the world, broken down by location. See your region's approximate risk level. Looking for something else? Global homepage. How humidity damages your home — and how to fight it Marie Bannister , August 01, Introduction When humidity in your home is too high or too low, it can make living conditions unpleasant, and it can also do lasting damage to the property.
What is humidity? Growth of mold and mildew These microscopic fungi are all around us, but in damp parts of the home, they find the perfect conditions to settle on surfaces and grow. Mold can cause health problems, like asthma in children, as well as triggering allergies. Damaged paintwork and peeling wallpaper The walls of your home are a prime site for condensation to gather, if high humidity is not controlled.
Rotting furniture, floors, and furnishings Excess moisture in the home due to high humidity can damage wood, either by creating stains and growths, or eventually by causing more serious decay. How to prevent high humidity in your home The good news is that you can take some simple steps to deal with high humidity in your home, with the help of good quality information about the humidity levels in your property.
How to fix high humidity in your home So if you already know that you have high humidity problems in your home, what can you do about it? How low humidity damages your home How low should you let humidity get in your home? How to prevent low humidity in your home To prevent low humidity in your home, you should find ways to add more moisture into the air.
How to solve low humidity in your home If you have persistently dry air, you might want to consider installing air conditioning or a humidifier to get the conditions right.
To help combat high humidity problems, heat your home properly, use ventilation, and keep moisture-creating activities to a minimum. Low humidity causes wood to shrink, which can damage furniture, floors, and window panes. It can also affect electronics. Heating and ventilation can help to control low humidity issues, while a humidifier stops the air from getting too dry.
Absolute humidity is the mass of water vapor divided by the mass of dry air in a volume of air at a given temperature. The hotter the air is, the more water it can contain. Relative humidity is the ratio of the current absolute humidity to the highest possible absolute humidity which depends on the current air temperature.
A reading of percent relative humidity means that the air is totally saturated with water vapor and cannot hold any more, creating the possibility of rain. This doesn't mean that the relative humidity must be percent in order for it to rain — it must be percent where the clouds are forming, but the relative humidity near the ground could be much less [source: University of Illinois ].
Humans are very sensitive to humidity, as the skin relies on the air to get rid of moisture. The process of sweating is your body's attempt to keep cool and maintain its current temperature. If the air is at percent relative humidity, sweat will not evaporate into the air.
As a result, we feel much hotter than the actual temperature when the relative humidity is high. Your shirt may become saturated with perspiration that doesn't go anywhere, leaving you feeling like a swampy bog monster of revolting proportions. If the relative humidity is low, we can feel much cooler than the actual temperature because our sweat evaporates easily, cooling us off. For example, if the air temperature is 75 degrees Fahrenheit 24 degrees Celsius and the relative humidity is zero percent, the air temperature feels like 69 degrees Fahrenheit 21 C to our bodies.
If the air temperature is 75 degrees Fahrenheit 24 C and the relative humidity is percent, we feel like it's 80 degrees 27 C out, and you start praying that you had the air conditioner serviced last fall. People tend to feel most comfortable at a relative humidity of between 30 and 50 percent. Humidifiers and dehumidifiers help to keep indoor humidity at a comfortable level. They also — vitally — help to dry interior structures like drywall and lumber to prevent them from deteriorating due moisture and subsequent mold [sources: Keefe , EPA ].
If you're an outdoorsy person or just particularly sensitive to that clammy, damp feeling you detect outside, it's vitally important to understand the difference between relative humidity RH and dew point, because the latter will actually give you a better idea of just how quickly you'll become uncomfortable with any exertion. The dew point is, in short, the point at which dew droplets form on objects like grass — in other words, when a relative humidity of percent is achieved [source: National Weather Service ].
The higher the dew point, the muggier it will be and the more uncomfortable you'll become. A dew point around 55 is pretty comfortable, but higher than 65 and you'll quickly realize how oppressive the situation really is. For example, a temperature of 80 degrees F 27 C and a dew point of 60 degrees F 15 degrees C would mean a RH of 50 percent.
Humidity is calculated using a formula combining vapor pressure, temperature, dew point and other factors [source: WHIO]. Water vapor also is called moisture. Absolute humidity expressed as grams of water vapor per cubic meter volume of air is a measure of the actual amount of water vapor moisture in the air, regardless of the air's temperature.
The higher the amount of water vapor, the higher the absolute humidity. For example, a maximum of about 30 grams of water vapor can exist in a cubic meter volume of air with a temperature in the middle 80s. Absolute and specific humidity are quite similar in concept.
In other words, it is a measure of the actual amount of water vapor in the air compared to the total amount of vapor that can exist in the air at its current temperature.
What we "feel" outside is the actual amount of moisture absolute humidity in the air. Meteorologists routinely consider the "dewpoint" temperature instead of, but analogous to absolute humidity to evaluate moisture, especially in the spring and summer.
The dewpoint temperature, which provides a measure of the actual amount of water vapor in the air, is the temperature to which the air must be cooled in order for that air to be saturated.
Although weather conditions affect people differently, in general in the spring and summer, surface dewpoint temperatures in the 50s usually are comfortable to most people, in the 60s are somewhat uncomfortable humid , and in the 70s are quite uncomfortable very humid.
In the Ohio Valley including Kentucky , common dewpoints during the summer range from the middle 60s to middle 70s. Dewpoints as high as 80 or the lower 80s have been recorded, which is very oppressive but fortunately relatively rare. While dewpoint gives one a quick idea of moisture content in the air, relative humidity does not since the humidity is relative to the air temperature. In other words, relative humidity cannot be determined from knowing the dewpoint alone, the actual air temperature must also be known.
If the air is totally saturated at a particular level e. If the relative humidity is percent i. It simply means that the maximum amount of moisture is in the air at the particular temperature the air is at. Saturation may result in fog at the surface and clouds aloft which consist of tiny water droplets suspended in the air.
Droplets grow through a process called "collision-coalescence" whereby droplets of varying sizes collide and fuse together coalesce. Ice crystal processes including deposition and aggregation also are important for particle growth. In thunderstorms, hail also can develop.
Once the suspended precipitation particles grow to sufficient size, the air can no longer support their weight and precipitation falls from the clouds. In humid climates, thunderstorms often cause heavier rain than general wintertime rainfall since moisture content in the air typically is higher in the spring and summer, and since air usually rises at a much more rapid rate within developing thunderstorms than in general winter systems.
Meteorologists are not just interested in dewpoint or absolute humidity at the surface, but aloft as well. Precipitable water PW is a measure of the total amount of water vapor contained in a small vertical column extending from the surface to the top of the atmosphere. However, as mentioned above, the majority of moisture in the atmosphere is contained roughly within the lowest 10, feet.
Precipitable water values around or above 1 inch are common in the spring and summer east of the Rocky Mountains including Kentucky.
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