Balanced Humidity: a Year-Round Concern In Your Southwest Illinois Home

Balanced Humidity: a Year-Round Concern In Your Southwest Illinois Home

In southwest Illinois, it can be challenging to maintain balanced humidity in the home throughout four very different seasons. Our winters are long and cold, with dry indoor air a common problem, while we experience the muggy and hot summers typical of the Midwest. This can be a real challenge for any home humidification system.

Why Humidity Matters

It’s important to both the inhabitants of your house and the house itself that humidity levels be kept at recommended levels. If there is not enough moisture in the air, family members are more likely to develop sore, scratchy throats and dry skin. Any family member with asthma or allergies may have more frequent and severe attacks. The house itself can develop peeling paint and plaster, and any items made of wood can begin cracking or warping from the lack of moisture in the air.

Conversely, if there’s too much moisture in the air, family members will sense the humidity as stickiness on their skin and an overall feeling of discomfort. The house itself may develop moisture on surfaces, which will lead to drying and cracking.

Indoor humidity that’s too low or too high also can have a profound effect on your energy use and utility bills. When the air is too dry in the winter, the air feels cooler, and you may compensate by turning up the thermostat. In the summer, with muggy indoor air, you do the opposite, since dry air feels cooler than moist air.

For these reasons, controlling humidity in your home is hugely important, for your family’s health and comfort as well as the well-being of the home. Talk to your trusted HVAC contractor about having a whole-house humidification system installed in your Metro-East home.

Contact Us

Whether you live in Alton, Bethalto, Edwardsville, Collinsville or Staunton, Ernst Heating & Cooling can help make your home safer, healthier and more comfortable. If you have any questions about home heating, air conditioning and comfort, please contact us today.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Hamel, Alton, Glen Carbon, Highland, Greenville, and Troy, Illinois and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about balanced humidity and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide. 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

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