Heating And Cooling And Humidity

If you’ve ever lived in a humid climate, you know that the amount of moisture in the air can have a profound effect not only on the temperature, but on how comfortable things are as well. What you may not realize is that this isn’t only true of warm climates.

Heating and cooling play an important role in keeping individuals around the world comfortable, and when it comes to comfort relative to temperature, humidity is one of the major contributing factors.

Most people associate the effects of moisture in the air with warm climates that can become oppressively hot when the air is at its thickest. In places such as the southeastern United States, humid temperatures are prevalent for many months out of the year and can make things very uncomfortable.

In places such as these, moisture can promote the growth of mold and mildew as well as attract unwanted pests such as fleas, roaches and moths. It can also make it harder to dry clothes or, perhaps most importantly, keep the temperature in your residence down, as humidity naturally makes climates heavier and warmer.

To combat these issues, heating and cooling systems often contain dehumidifiers or act as such that help reduce the wetness in the home. With centralized systems, a drain is often connected to the heating and cooling system to help channel the water it collects to the outside. With individual window units, this water can be similarly drained outside or allowed to evaporate outdoors.

At the same time, even the northernmost, frigid climates can be affected by the amount of moisture in the atmosphere - or rather, the lack thereof. Frigid climates can be extremely dry, which can make it hard on skin and other aspects of the human body. Moreover, heating and cooling systems that warm buildings using forced hot air and other techniques that pump heat inside a home often severely dry out the atmosphere within that home.

Because of this, humidifiers are often recommended as good compliments to centralized systems that blow heat into a home. Hot air produced by boilers and furnaces can be irritating to the human respiratory system over time and can also dry out the skin and many other things that can be found in the home. Introducing moisture into the area in smaller doses can not only help reduce the irritating nature of this artificial heat, it can also make these systems more efficient and effective and reduce the strain on them during the most extreme periods of cold temperatures.

Like with many things, the individual effects of humidity on certain climates, homes and individual situations can vary due to a number of different variables. Likewise, the type of heating and cooling system you have installed in the building in question is a significant factor in determining what may or may not be necessary when it comes to dealing with humidity. Nonetheless, whether you have a centralized system or a single window unit, it’s always important to consider this factor when determining how to most efficiently keep things comfortable.