Guest post by Karen Kung
As the weather begins to lean toward the colder side, memories of the past winter start flooding our thoughts. The one thing we forget every year is just how dry the air can be during the colder months. The importance of humidity in the home is underrated and often dismissed.
The most obvious of all benefits to maintaining humidity in the home is preventing that Doc Brown looking hairdo. However, there are a slew of other benefits that could save your health, your home and your wallet.
Benefits to Maintaining a Healthy Humidity Level in Your Home:
- Since bacteria thrive in humidity and viruses thrive in low humidity, maintaining a good humidity level can prevent the likelihood of catching a cold, the flu or other upper respiratory viruses.
- Humidity can help reduce susceptibility to infection by keeping the mucus membranes of your breathing passages moist.
- With lack of humidity, your skin can become dry, leading it to crack and separate. The same can happen to your walls, ceilings, wood floors, furniture, piano, etc. because the air is drawing moisture from anywhere it can.
- Because dry air draws moisture from your skin, you can begin to feel colder, causing you to turn the heat up. However, moist air feels warmer because it holds heat better, so maintaining a certain level of humidity may actually lower your heating bill.
There are many different types of humidifiers out there ranging from whole-house humidifiers, cold-mist, warm-mist, aroma therapy, ultrasonic and more. To find out more about the many different options and glossary of humidifiers, check out http://www.consumersearch.com/humidifiers.
In addition to a humidifier, a good, cheap instrument to have in the home is a hygrometer, which measures the moisture content in the atmosphere. This way you don’t over-humidify your home, which can lead to mold or bacteria. You can find a digital hygrometer for less than $10.00 on Amazon.com.
One thing is for sure though, whichever humidifier you go with, remember to always to maintain and keep it clean.
