Installing a humidifier in your home to control humidity levels creates a healthier indoor environment for your home. It improves the efficiency and comfort of your home.
A humidifier comes with a humidistat that you can adjust to control the humidity levels in your home. Most home users are accustomed to temperature levels and are less knowledgeable on humidity levels.
This makes humidistat settings very confusing. However, adjusting the humidistat to the right settings should be as easy as setting the thermostat, despite you having to set this device only twice every year.
Regulating indoor humidity concentration makes the air within your home feel warmer or cooler. During the cold season, natural humidity in air is very low.
Therefore, you must adjust the humidistat settings to create a suitable indoor environment for your home. There are a few necessary steps that you can follow when setting your humidistat. However, your eventual humidistat settings should be based on your preference.
Humidistat Settings Chart
Where Are Humidistat Fitted?
Humidistat is installed in a home to monitor and report dependable levels of humidity found in the air. Ideally, they are installed near other devices responsible for ensuring a home gets the required amount of humidity. Some of the tools where humidistat is used include dehumidifiers or stand-alone humidifiers.
Makes Sure Your Humidifier’s Damper is Placed Correctly
Before your set your humidistat, ensure that your humidifier is well-positioned. It should be in a position where there is enough flow of air.
A lot of furnace humidifiers have an inbuilt damper fitted on the ductwork to control how air flows into the unit. In warmer seasons, the damper is always closed because of the inactivity of the humidifier.
When the cold season comes, the lever found on the damper is pushed to facilitate a steady flow of air into the humidifier. Ideally, the correct position of the humidifier will have appropriate labels either winter, open, or heating.
Overall Guidelines for Humidistat Settings
After ensuring that your humidifier is receiving sufficient airflow, proceed to set your humidifier by choosing appropriate humidistat settings for your home. Generally, a healthy and comfortable indoor humidity should be between 30-55%.
A lot of homeowners prefer having humidistat settings between 35-45% because these humidity levels give excellent results. You can try out different humidistat settings to achieve different indoor humidity levels and then choose the best settings for your home.
You, however, have to pay close attention to the windows of your when setting humidity levels, especially when you raise the humidistat settings. When water begins to form on your home’s window, you should consider lowering humidistat settings by several percentages.
What You Should Consider for Your Humidistat When It’s Extremely Cold Outside
The outside temperature is a crucial consideration when setting your humidistat. When it is very cold outside your house, humidistat settings tend to be very high.
In this case, the high temperature and humidity inside your home combine with the cold temperature outside, which initiates the process of condensation. Condensation results in the dampening of walls and windows in your home. This dampness can damage the floor and walls close to the window.
When condensation begins to build on your home’s windows, lower the humidistat settings to create a balance between the cold outdoor temperature and indoor high temperature and humidity.
Some humidistats (View on Amazon) monitor both the indoor and outdoor and automatically change their settings when the outdoor temperature begins to get very cold.
How to Set a Humidistat When Home
Getting the right humidistat setting while you are at home is simple. More often than not, HVAC companies bypass humidistat when installing new systems.
You will, therefore, need to set your humidistat ‘ON’ position, and then adjust the thermostat to your preferred temperature. Contact a local HVAC repair in case you experience a problem. It also helps to have your HVAC system working to avoid growth of mold, especially during summer.
Humidistat Settings When Not Home
You may need to travel and leave your humidistat running. However, you might not really know how to set your humidistat.
If you will be away from your home for an extended period, you need to set your humidistat to consume less energy. This measure will ensure that your home retains a consistent humidity level without using a lot of energy. It will also inhibit the growth of mold in your home.
Energy experts say mold can grow when the relative humidity level in your home is at 68%. To be safe, you need to your humidistat’s RH, Relative Humidity, at 58%. You should also adjust thermostat temperature levels to 77, 78, 79, or 80 degrees Fahrenheit. With these settings, you will maintain a constant humidity level in your home at 58 percent.
Humidistat Settings during summer
There is no one-fit-all humidity level for every home during summer. Each family set humidity levels based on their preference. However, humidistat setting ranging between 35% and 45% is preferred during summer.
However, it would help if you considered other factors such as location, which will influence the levels of humidity in your home. Some areas are more humid during summer than others. Therefore, adjust your humidistat setting to levels that will guarantee your comfort.
Ideal Humidity for a Finished Basement
Standard relative humidity levels for a basement, whether finished or not, is between 30 and 50 percent. In summer, outside moisture flows into the basement through windows and walls to increase this figure to between 65% and 70% across most parts of Canada and the United States.
If you have a room in your basement, you are likely to suffer discomfort from dampness, chilliness, and earthy sensation as you walk into your basement.
Humidistat Settings for Basements in Winter
You probably have a heated finished basement that retains a consistent relative humidity at 50% when you heat the room at 65 degrees Fahrenheit and above. Lower the relative humidity percentage in your finished basement even further to lower than 30%.
When the outside temperature is between 0 and -10, the relative humidity of your finished basement should be at 25% to eliminate the formation of ice on the inner side of your basement windows.
You can adjust levels of humidity in your finished basement for it to become a more comfortable, conditioned, and usable space. Follow these steps to ensure that your finished basement has the right levels of humidity:
- Install a dehumidifier that will drain into your home’s main feeder drain. You can also drain it into a utility sink. Get a dehumidifier that has an in-built display of relative humidity. It should also have a humidistat that will allow you to adjust humidity levels in your basement.
- Reduce moisture levels in your basement using an exhaust fan that pulls excess moisture from the basement when you shower. In addition to this, avoid venting your clothes drier from the inside of your home.
- Direct all the downspouts far away from your home’s foundation. Also, refrain from overwatering plants near the foundation.
- Inspect your basement for a potential source of leaks from outside and fix them. Such sources of leaks include cracks on basement walls.
You can also control levels of humidity in unfinished basements that are used as storage facilities to dissuade the growth of mold and mildew, which will affect the stored items.
Humidistat settings are important for achieving a comfortable indoor environment. These settings are not necessarily industry standards or a one-fit-all solution for all homes. However, they are a guide or a range where indoor humidistat settings should fall.
Experiment with different humidistat settings to find a comfortable setting for your home. If your home is located in warmer areas, you can switch off your AC to save money. Only turn it on when humidity gets to a level that causes discomfort.
