Six Symptoms Show Your House Is Thirsty | |
If your home is showing any of the following signs, it's a good bet your house needs added humidity: Splits or cracks in woodwork or walls. Wooden doors that show gaps, or that no longer fit tightly. Gaps between the boards in the hardwood floors. Widening joints in cabinets or wooden paneling. Loose or wobbly chair legs and arms. Pianos that never stay in tune. What causes all this damage? Wood shrinkage. The wood structure of a typical new 2,100 square-foot home contains an astounding 635 gallons of water. As long as the indoor humidity level stays around 35 percent, the moisture content of the wood remains pretty much constant. However, during the heating season the relative humidity of a home's indoor air may plummet to 13 percent or less. That's drier than Death Valley. That super-dry air steals moisture wherever it can find it including walls, floors, and furniture. And, as wood loses moisture, some species of wood may shrink more than seven percent, according to the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory. The best way to get the right humidity all the time is to use a whole house humidifier with an automatic control system, such as Aprilaire's Auto-Trac. Humidifiers can actually monitor the outdoor temperature to maintain the optimum indoor humidity level for homes, furnishings, and people. Built-in micro-processors automatically adjust the relative humidity set point by one-half percent for every degree of outside temperature change, making as many as 45 adjustments per day. |