Humidity in summers can get intense, making the hot temperatures feel unbearable. Higher humidity means more moisture in the air that doesn’t evaporate as much sweat from your skin, which carries some of your body heat away. Less evaporation equals hotter body temperatures.
Effects of High Humidity
High humidity can seep into your house through your cooling system, leak in your ductwork, and gaps throughout the structure. In addition to making you feel hotter, humidity can make your house feel muggy, smell musty, damage your home’s structural integrity. You may also notice the sign of peeling paint, wet spots forming on the ceiling and walls. The airborne spores and allergens can spread throughout your home as well, spreading the infestation through the ventilation system. High humidity reduces the house’s overall indoor air quality and creates complications for those with respiratory conditions, allergies, and certain heart ailments.
Humidity enables conditions for allergens to grow and thrive inside your home, and it can become a breeding ground for mold and mildew growth. Small and poorly ventilated areas can get very humid and damp in certain climates, making them vulnerable to mold and mildew growth, pest infestations, structural damage to the house, and significant health problems. With mildew and mold growth, the damage can be irreversible, making repairs to the areas invasive and costly.
How Does a Dehumidifier Work?
A dehumidifier is ideal for controlling humidity and preventing excess moisture from entering your house. Dehumidifiers optimize and maintain humidity levels within enclosed spaces by removing the excess moisture, keeping the indoors free of sticky air, muggy conditions, and unhealthy mold growth. A dehumidification system will help keep mold, pests such as termites, and dust mites away. It can also help to increase the life span of your clothes and furniture.
A dehumidifier comprises a fan, a reheater, compressor coils, and a water container. The device pulls the humid air onto specialized coils, absorbing the moisture, and draining the resulting liquid into a reservoir. It then releases the dehumidified air back into the environment lowering the house’s overall moisture content, making the air dry, warm, and free of excess water, leaving you feeling comfortable.
How Does a Dehumidifier Help an Air Conditioner?
While the Aircon acts as a natural dehumidifier, it collects the moisture from the air, condensed on coils, and is drained away during the air cooling process, resulting in a comfortable environment. However, in high relative humidity areas or extreme summer temperatures, the air conditioner cannot dehumidify the air quickly enough, resulting in wet, cold air.
Also, suppose you are using an older, inefficient, or wrong-sized system. In that case, it may not be able to handle the work effectively, and you end up feeling warmer than the actual temperature as the air is holding extra moisture that has not been efficiently removed.
The majority of the standard air conditioning systems are designed to operate efficiently with external temperatures ranging from 100 degrees or less. When exterior temperatures become higher than 100 degrees, the air conditioning unit cannot function efficiently and may consume more energy, and may experience a malfunction or failure. Additionally, the air conditioning unit needs to work longer and harder without providing the desired result, adding wear and tear to the unit and resulting in higher utility bills. Installing a dehumidifier alongside your air conditioner improves its performance and efficiency.
A dehumidifier helps the cooling system work efficiently by removing excess moisture from the air before circulating it through the air ducts. The air conditioner isn’t required to work harder to maintain ideal temperatures in your home. You save energy when your air conditioner performs a reasonable amount, and your cooling system experiences less wear and tear.
Moisture can accumulate inside air conditioners in high humidity, which can interfere with the inner components and force the ac unit to work harder to maintain controlled temperatures throughout the house. Reducing moisture inside the air conditioner will help the unit operate smoothly and experience less wear and tear. By removing the excess moisture from the air-conditioned air, reduces damp spots throughout your home.
An oversized AC system cannot efficiently control temperature and humidity. The powerful compressor switches on and off frequently, so the system is not operating long enough to remove the excess humidity from the air. Also, an air conditioning unit that works only at one speed can experience problems as it runs on full blast once switched on, until the air reaches the set temperature and switches off until the temperature once again goes above the thermostat threshold. This means that the unit doesn’t run consistently enough to remove humidity.
As your air conditioner ages, parts wear, and it may not run as efficiently as it used to if it is not regularly maintained.
Installing a Dehumidifier with an Air Conditioner?
Installing a dehumidifier directly on your HVAC system is an efficient and reliable way to manage the moisture in your home. The dehumidifier will work in tandem with the air conditioning system by removing excess water from the air before it is sent via the air ducts in your home. This allows the air conditioning unit to work less often because the lower humidity levels make the air feel more relaxed. A whole-home dehumidifier helps your air conditioner run effectively, as it can efficiently cool the already dehumidifier air.
If you have a new system installed, it will be ideal for adding a dehumidifier on top of it to help manage both temperature and humidity levels in your home. Alternatively, you can install a stand-alone dehumidifier that maintains the optimal humidity level using an automatic humidity level indicator.
Whole-house vs. Portable Dehumidifiers
Whole-home dehumidifiers tie into your existing HVAC system. These units collect air from vents within each room, and this air is sent to the dehumidifier, which is then distributed to every room in the house. Whole-house dehumidifiers can dehumidify the home even if you’re not running the AC.
Portable Dehumidifiers: Portable dehumidifiers are small, single-room units that plug into the wall. While they operate on the same principle to remove excess humidity, unlike whole-home dehumidifiers, these units collect the excess moisture in a container at the bottom of the unit, as against the whole house dehumidifiers, which directly empty into a drain). Portable dehumidifiers are available in different sizes, from large rooms and crawl spaces, as well as small units for cupboards, bedrooms, and bathrooms.
A stand-alone dehumidifier costs a fraction of the whole-house unit’s price with installation, but it tends to remove moisture best from the air immediately surrounding it; hence it has little impact on the adjoining air areas. If you have a large capacity dehumidifier, you would need to empty the condensate tank frequently. Stand-alone units are noisy when placed in living areas.
Enhancing Humidity Control from an Existing System
Frequently clean the AC coils: Humid air outdoors is rough on your AC’s condenser coils, and they can get grimy in a hurry. That layer of dirt and debris hurt the unit’s ability to release heat. As a result, the AC does not operate as efficiently and may have more trouble removing humidity from the air inside.
Take a Preventive Maintenance plan: Cleaning only the coils may not be enough to restore performance and better HVAC humidity control if the rest of the system hasn’t been adequately maintained. When you invest in a preventative maintenance plan for your air conditioner, you get a regular inspection, tune-up, and system components cleaning that helps running the unit efficiently and provide better HVAC humidity control.
Using a whole-home dehumidifier with your air conditioner improves energy-efficiency in your home and keeps you feeling comfortable all summer long.
See also:
- Air Conditioner Vs Dehumidifier: Which One Do You Need
- Best Air Conditioner Dehumidifier Combo
- 5 Best Dehumidifiers For HVAC systems
- Dehumidifiers for Warehouse and Storage Space