Humidity levels in Home

techdiver

Hi,

I recently purchased a few ThermPro hygrometers and placed them in various rooms across the house to try and dial in my central heating using the TRV's on my radiators. I use a Hive system to manage all this.

The house is relatively new (2014) and is well insulated and is in general a good warm home. I have noticed that the hygrometers are reading the humidity levels on the high end (over 60% sometimes high 60's). From my reading of this, it seems on the high side as what I've read stated you should keep your humidity below 50%. There is no damp or anything like that, but just wondering is this sometime I should look into?

Tree

It's usually relative humidity that you measure, so as the house is warmer the humidity goes down (as the same volume of air can hold more water), and if your's is high with reasonable ventilation you probably have the thermometers set lower than usual.

techdiver

Thanks for the reply. When you say "you probably have the thermometers set lower than usual", could you elaborate on that? There is no "settings" on them, just simple led screen and switch between F/C.

If it helps I keep my house temperature at 19 degrees. I only needed to start using the central heating this week. I set my hive thermostat to 19 degrees.

10-10-20

I think that the best advise here is that humidity (RH) will often be high in-doors due to human activities such as washing, drying, cooking a perspiring, but that external factors also will cause seasonal adjustment to that ambient RH value. If you're not seeing signs of mold around windows, excessive condensation on glazing or mildew in presses and such, then the RH might be ok but still needs to be kept in-check.

You do this by ensuring ventilation through wall-vents and by opening a window on all except the wettest of days, and by having an extractor on when cooking (externall ventilating one and not a recirculating type) and drying clothes outside where possible.

Other ways of decreasing the RH would be to warm the house so that the air can hold more moisture, but this isn't actually dealing with the level of moisture as it still sits in the air. As soon as the house then drops in temperature, all that retained moisture has to go somewhere and it comes out of the air and lands on any cooler surface such as window glazing, the back of wardrobes and walls, etc.

So stay at 19 degrees C, but just throw a few windows open so that excess moisture in some areas can move on and consider a dehumidifier if you feel that the RH is still remaining high.

zg3409

I have a few temperature and humidity sensors and in work we have them all over. High 60s is normal indoors at this time of year. Put them outdoors and you will probably get same results.

Some Aircon systems can be set to "dry" for times when humidity is high but I don't think you have a problem if you have no mould in bathrooms etc.

As mentioned when showering put on extract fan and open window until all condensation is fully gone. Same when cooking put on extractor fan and open nearby window.

It's rainy today which can make high humidity.

Personally it's nothing to worry about and there is no cheap way to reduce humidity.