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Serving the South Puget Sound and Western Washington Areas Since 1976

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Sunset Air Blog

Why You Should Care about Improving Your Indoor Air Quality

indoor-shot-of-pretty-living-space-with-two-dogs-laying-on-floorThere are several reasons you should care about improving your indoor air quality. For instance, the level of contaminants and potentially unhealthy particles circulating through your home’s air can be greater than what’s outside, due to tight, energy-efficient construction. But this is just one example. In this post, we’re going to talk about something you’re probably quite familiar with—excess humidity.

Humidity, in essence, is moisture—moisture in the air that makes us uncomfortable when there is too much of it. The only way to rid the air of humidity is to lower the temperature. So, we all turn on our air conditioners and set them to the lowest possible temperature, when in reality all this does is make your air conditioner work too hard, rather than helping to relieve humidity in a measurable way. Ultimately, this will put undue strain on your air conditioner and cause it to accumulate damage.

The Impact of High Humidity

What you’re facing here is excessive AC repairs and a shortened system lifespan as a result of too much humidity. In other words, you should care about improving your indoor air quality because apathy toward it will literally cost you.

So, what is considered high humidity then? If the relative humidity level in your home is above 50%, this is considered too high. Conversely, anything below 30% means the air is too dry—a wintertime issue that also has its problems. Anything above 50% though, is when most Puyallup residents notice discomfort in their living space.

The thing is, we stay cool by sweating and having that sweat evaporate off of our skin. So when the humidity level is too high, there is too much ambient moisture in the air to allow our bodies to sweat. Therefore, we stay hot and the sweat stays on our skin. Not only is the discomfort of sticky muggy weather a nuisance, but like we said above, it hurts your air conditioner, too.

“What Happens to My Air Conditioner?”

As we said, the best way to lower relative humidity is by lowering the temperature, which causes moisture to coalesce into droplets. This process means your AC system does serve as a dehumidifier, by default—but not at the level you need it too.

Air conditioning systems are not designed to control humidity. Yes, they do remove some excess moisture in the air just by operating, but it is not a significant amount, and you don’t have control over the precise amount of moisture that’s removed.

Consider a Dehumidifier Installation

A whole-house dehumidifier is the answer to this problem. Over the seasons, high humidity levels will shorten the lifespan of your cooling system. But a whole-house dehumidifier is designed to remove excessive moisture from your home, without negatively affecting your air conditioner.

In fact, a dehumidifier actually helps your air conditioner, since you won’t have to turn the thermostat down as low, and in effect, the air conditioner won’t have to work as hard to do its job.

For a Puyallup HVAC company you can trust for your indoor air quality needs, contact Sunset Air today!

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