Latest / Shafer Heating and Cooling Service Repair Podcast / 💧🌡️ Why Is My House So Sticky? The Truth About Humidity and Your HVAC System

Transcript

💧🌡️ Why Is My House So Sticky? The Truth About Humidity and Your HVAC System · Shafer Heating and Cooling Service Repair Podcast

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  Recording in progress. A question's coming to the Checker Pro Radio Show,
• 0:04
  and I've got my HVAC expert here.
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  HVAC, Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning. For those of you who've heard
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  of HVAC but don't know what it is, it's your heating and air conditioning system
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  with some ventilation in the middle. Hey, how you doing?
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  Hey, good, Jim. How are you? It's great to have you, Nathan Schaefer.
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  I am doing very well. Phenomenal.
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  Questions come in from Donna. She says, every June, when the humidity really
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  starts to settle in here in southwest Ohio, our home starts feeling sticky and
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  uncomfortable, even with the AC running constantly.
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  Can Nathan explain why Ohio humidity is so hard on a home's comfort level?
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  What role our AC system plays in controlling indoor humidity and whether there
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  are additional solutions like whole home dehumidifiers that work alongside the
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  AC to keep our home feeling truly comfortable? It's a good question.
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  Yeah, it is. Yeah, thanks for sending that in, Donna.
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  Yeah, so a couple things where I can tie into this.
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  Very good question. something we see very common.
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  And when it comes into the middle of summer and the humidity here in Southern
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  Ohio gets extremely high, our temperatures start to increase.
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  And so humidity is extremely important.
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  It 100% ties into the comfort of our home.
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  And so I think one important fact to remember is that for every 5% in relative
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  humidity feels like one degree in temperature change for us, right?
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  And so ideally in the summertime, we want to keep that humidity in the home,
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  you know, between that 45 to 50% range.
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  That's the healthiest, right? It eliminates all the organisms and bacteria and,
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  you know, mold and spiders, like all these different things from growing, right?
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  Or living and having inside the home, which we don't want. But also too.
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  Even if you think of things like your hardwood flooring, your piano, different things.
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  If you look at the warranties on those, the conditions are supposed to be in
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  anything over 50%, those warranties are voided.
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  So for other things in your home, your custom cabinets, your woodwork,
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  your doors, et cetera, all those things are affected by humidity.
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  So great question. We definitely want to control the humidity,
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  not only for our comfort and our health, but as well as everything else in the home.
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  Now, as far as what can tie into that and cause that, a couple of things can,
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  right? So in newer homes, we're so airtight now, it's very important,
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  which is great for efficiency and the cost to heat and cool the home.
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  However, it has to be properly conditioned. And so we still have to introduce
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  fresh air, and there's ways that we can do that.
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  We can control that based off of temperature, humidity, et cetera.
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  And we don't need it in maybe necessarily 24-7, but we need to bring that in
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  so much per code as well as for comfort and how many people live in the home.
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  There's a bunch of formulas that go into that, but the idea is that we need
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  to introduce fresh air into an extremely airtight home.
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  So if your home is completely what they call encapsulated or spray foamed,
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  that's awesome for efficiency, but we just need to condition that correctly.
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  Otherwise, we're going to have very, very high humidity.
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  Systems are going to short cycle a little bit more and or if the system isn't
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  sized correctly, right?
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  Yeah, who's ever heard the term of, hey, you know, bigger is better.
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  That's not the case when it comes to air conditioning. If anything,
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  you would probably be a little bit better off and more comfortable if the system
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  was a smidge undersized versus oversized.
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  And the fact that it'll run all the time, right, especially on those extreme
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  heat days, we're going to remove more humidity, which is going to be more comfortable,
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  more healthy versus kick on, kick off, kick on, kick off.
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  It'll maintain the temperature, but the humidity continues to rise.
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  And so one of the jobs of an air conditioner is to remove humidity.
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  So not only does it control temperature, but it also does remove humidity when
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  it's running. When it's not running though, we're not removing humidity.
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  So sizing is very important.
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  And so we can, we can, there's ways to check that. We can do manual J-Lo calcs
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  on the home and check to make sure your system is sized correctly.
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  But otherwise, outside of that, in this area, it is very common still for a home dehumidity.
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  And in those cases, when the system is sized correctly, we've got that addressed.
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  Yes, there are high capacity whole home dehumidifiers that can be installed
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  in multiple different ways in multiple different locations of the home.
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  Right. So whether you're on a slab, a crawl space, you have an attic,
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  a basement, et cetera. they can be installed in different places.
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  They can be standalone inducted in by themselves and or we can tie them into
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  the existing HVAC system.
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  Each house, each application is different, but the options are really endless.
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  But that one high capacity Energy Star dehumidifier will take and dehumidify the entire home.
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  And so now we can, you know, not only condition the temperature in the home,
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  but as well as maintain the humidity levels in the home to keep that below that
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  50%, therefore keeping it more comfortable for you.
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  So, Nathan, I would imagine on a really humid day that's not too hot,
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  the whole house dehumidifier would be maybe the best thing to use.
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  Because if you turn your AC on to pull the humidity out, you're going to have
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  to really cool the home because you really can't separate the two from your HVAC system.
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  It will pull humidity out when it's running, but if it's only 74 degrees outside,
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  but very humid, you'd have to bring it down considerably where you might be
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  uncomfortable just to get the humidity out.
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  Yeah, exactly. Yep. And we can put that all in one control. Then that way you
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  just set your temperature and we set the humidity and you forget the rest, right?
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  It'll automatically stage in the AC and the dehumidifier as needed so that we
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  maintain both right where you want it for the temperature as well as the humidity level.
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  And for those of you who don't quite understand the humidity coming out of your
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  air conditioning unit, it's when you see the water dripping out.
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  So if it's a window unit, a simple one, you'll see water dripping out.
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  When you park your car or truck somewhere and you see water in the summertime,
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  it's probably from the air conditioning because it pulls the humidity out. It has to go somewhere.
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  You don't see it so much and you really shouldn't see it so much in your HVAC
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  system if it's integrated into your home, a system with your heating and your
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  air conditioning. It does drain.
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  If it's draining properly, then you probably don't see the water.
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  It's when you have a problem is when you see the water.
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  Yeah, exactly. And depending on how your system is set up, if you're on a crawl
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  space and or a slab in certain cases, but you might see that white pipe coming
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  out somewhere around your house or close to your AC commonly.
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  In the summertime, I'm sorry, you'll see a solid stream of water or water dripping
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  out of that. That's that condensation. Yeah.
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  You put your hand over top of the AC outside in the summertime,
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  there's hot air coming out of top. That's the heat being pulled out of the house.
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  You see the water running out of the drain. That's the humidity being pulled out of the home.
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  And so the more humid it is, the more condensation you're going to see,
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  the less humid it is, the less condensation you're going to see.
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  Assuming that the system is dialed in and working correctly,
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  those are all common things that you're going to see, but that's how that works
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  and where that's coming from.
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  Yes, it's ironic. The fan that's blowing outside should be blowing hot air.
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  So if it's blowing cool air, ambient air, you know your system isn't pulling
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  the heat out of the air this has been awesome Nathan thank you so much I really
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  appreciate you joining me here today on the show my pleasure anytime.