When you think of heating and cooling services, you no doubt think of their ability to keep your home warm in the winter and cool in the summer. What too many homeowners fail to think about is how to reduce the humidity in their home. Humidity in the home is not only uncomfortable, it can also promote the growth of dangerous mold and make heating and cooling systems have to work harder to keep your home comfortable. That, of course, leads to the need for more frequent and costly home air conditioning repairs.
Fortunately, spending an arm and a leg on home air conditioning repair as a result of stifling humidity doesn’t have to be a fact of life. By learning to reduce the humidity in your home naturally, you can help take the weight off your air conditioning system, not to mention your wallet.
Three Natural Ways to Lower Humidity in Your Home
- Use Windows to Improve the Ventilation
- Japanese Charcoal is a Traditional and Effective Remedy
- If You’re a Plant Person, Cover Your Plants
For the health and well-being website Critical Cactus, one of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce the humidity in your home is to open the windows. Proper ventilation will keep the humidity flowing out of your home, keeping it from settling, stagnating, and becoming unbearable. This trick won’t do you too much good in the colder months, but humidity is luckily lower during those seasons, anyway.
Since the 19th century, Japanese homeowners have been using a type of traditional charcoal made from the indigenous ubame oak to rid their homes of humidity. As the home improvement guide Apartment Therapy points out, not only does this traditional remedy soak up a lot of moisture in the air, it also doubles as a natural air cleanser. As yet another bonus, when the charcoal stops being effective, you can simply set it in sunlight outside to return it to its porous, highly absorbent state.
Plants have the natural ability to clean the air in your home, and studies have shown that the splash of color they bring to the home can do wonders for the mood. That said, they are also humidity-producing machines. Luckily, as the do-it-yourself community DIY Natural suggests, you can actually improve your plants’ health and reduce your home’s humidity in one fell swoop by covering the soil with a plastic bag. This will keep your plants’ roots hydrated, while keeping the evaporating water from humidifying your air. This is one of the simplest ways to avoid needless home air conditioning repairs.
Do you know of any other ways to keep the humidity in your home low without having to rely on specialized home air conditioning systems? Tell us about your techniques in the comments below. Read more.