Humidity

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

please tell us the best place in your home to place a humidifier. WE suffer from very dry itchy skin during the winter months. Please note though we do have soft water. Thanks the Neville family.

P.S.

If it matters we live in a multi level home.

Steven N.

Does adding a humidifier to your heating system at home really eliminate or reduce static shock? What percentage of humidity is optimal?

Thanks,

Mike K.

**********************************************************

In such a dry place it's important to address the issue of humidity. Our annual mean relative humidity is 55 %. In the summertime, afternoon humidities drop into the 20 to 25% area. At anyrate, it's dry around here!

Humidifiers can be a great investment, especially if you suffer from dry skin or frequent bloody noses. You want to put a humidifier away from walls and bulky furniture. The moisture can cause mold problems on those surfaces which you want to avoid. Humidifiers also need to be cleaned often especially if you have hard water and want to avoid mineral depsosits. Also, place it on a flat surface (although I don't know how you wouldn't do this!). If you do have hard water you might want to use distilled water to fill up your humidifer to avoid deposits and white dust forming in your rooms.

You want to put the humidifier in the room where you spend the most time, if that happens to be while you are sleeping, the bedroom might be best. Keep the door closed in the bedroom too. You want the humidity in the room around 30 to 40 percent to help make a difference as far as moisture in the skin goes. Keeping the house a little cooler in the winter also helps the humidity level a bit higher.

Now, onto static shocks. Ideal house humidity is 30 to 40 % so that should help to reduce shock but it won't eliminate it. Apparently, natural fabrics like cotton help reduce shock too instead of fabrics like polyester or nylon. You can also switch to leather shoes, some companies even make ones that are "static reducing". Another trick I read about was to put a tiny bit of liquid fabric softener (if you aren't allergic to it) into a bottle of water and spray things like your furniture and carpet.

The humidifier will help but it won't get rid of the problem.

Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.