Sometimes in the heat of summer, an air conditioner just isn’t enough to keep you comfortable. The amount of humidity in the air can make you feel hotter, wetter, and generally just less comfortable – even when your air conditioner is working properly. The amount of moisture in the air can make your home feel uncomfortable and muggy. Excess moisture can also harm the wood, fabric, and drywall in your home, often by encouraging mold or other damage.
While an air conditioner does a bit of dehumidifying, many people find that they need a dedicated dehumidifier to make breathing, sleeping, and just being in their home more comfortable. If you’re considering getting a dehumidifier, here is what you need to know about them.
There are technically two kinds of dehumidifiers. One works just the way that your air conditioner does. By using refrigerant, air conditioners also tend to move humidity out of your home. However, if you’re buying a dedicated dehumidifier is it more likely that it works through condensation or absorption. Typically, they use a fan to pull in warm air over a cold surface. Contact with the cold surface makes the humidity condense into a liquid, which the dehumidifier then captures. All that is left is for the machine to drain the moisture out of your home through its drain line.
Dehumidifiers may have a series of settings, or they may simply have only “on” and “off.” We suggest that you start your dehumidifier on its highest settings. This will help resolve your initial humidity problem faster. If you find things get too dry, you can always turn it back down.
Some air conditioners also have a dehumidifier setting where they will focus on removing humidity and not do much cooling.
Are you looking to purchase a dehumidifier? Let our team at Handy Bros ClimateCare help you make an informed decision. Give us a call today.
Not all dehumidifiers need emptying, so if you can’t find any reference to this in your owner’s manual, you probably don’t need to empty it. It should have a drain line in this case.
Other dehumidifiers, especially those that handle only one room, need to be emptied. They typically have a cartridge or built-in container that you can remove and pour down the drink. Every model is different, so you may want to look up your specific instructions.
There are a few other nuggets of wisdom that we want to pass on about dehumidifiers. First, you can get dehumidifiers that work in just a room or in your whole home. Those with health conditions that are affected by low humidity may want to have just one dedicated for their room. Those with widespread humidity problems or concerns about mold, comfort or damage to the wood in their home may instead want to choose a dehumidifier that can draw moisture out of the whole home.
Are you looking for more information on dehumidifiers? Our team at Handy Bros ClimateCare would be happy to answer any of your questions. Give us a call today.
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