If you live in the Tampa Bay, FL, area, you know how humid it gets in the summer. Outside, it can be almost unbearable as the combination of moisture and heat turns stifling. Indoors, though, the high humidity can be even worse. When your home’s too humid, your AC will struggle to cool your home. Plus, you’ll feel warmer than it is and end up trying to compensate by setting a lower thermostat temperature. Your home can even suffer damage as a result of persistently high indoor humidity. For all of those reasons, you’d do well to keep your home’s indoor humidity in check during the summer in the following ways.
Always Use Your Home’s Exhaust Fans
Here in Tampa Bay, the outdoor humidity in the summer typically pushes your indoor humidity well above ideal levels. So, the first thing you should do to control your indoor humidity is remove any other moisture sources. The best way to do that is to make use of your home’s exhaust fans. For example, when you shower, use your bathroom’s exhaust fan to vent the excess moist air outside. And if you’re planning to cook, use your kitchen’s exhaust fan while you do. This will remove some of the excess moisture produced inside your home.
Purchase Humidity Loving Plants
Although you may not know it, certain types of plants can help you dehumidify your home. For example, epiphytes like Boston ferns and air plants can pull moisture right out of your home’s air. Plant varieties like palms and spider plants do this as well. If you put plenty of these humidity-loving plants in your home, they will lower its relative humidity. Plus, they’ll improve your home’s air quality, too.
Use a Portable Dehumidifier
You can also use one or more portable dehumidifiers to control the humidity inside your home. This is an excellent approach if your concern relates primarily to your comfort. A portable dehumidifier can dry out the air in the spaces you use frequently. That will make you feel more comfortable without requiring any major investments.
Upgrade Your Home’s Insulation
Another thing you can do to control the humidity inside your Tampa Bay home is to upgrade its insulation. Since much of the humidity in your home comes from outside, extra insulation will help keep it out. Ideally, you can add a thicker layer of foam sheathing under your home’s siding. Foam insulation does an excellent job of blocking humidity. You can also have a layer of spray foam insulation added to your home’s walls from the inside. However, any effort you make to upgrade your home’s insulation must also include thorough air sealing. The idea is to prevent any air transfer between the outside and inside of your home. Without a tight air seal, humidity will still make its way inside, spoiling all of your other efforts.
Install an Energy Recovery Ventilator
One of the biggest problems with the high humidity in Tampa Bay is that it’s everywhere. This means you’ll only worsen your indoor humidity problem if you open your home’s windows. However, there may be times when it’s cool enough outside that you don’t want to keep your AC running. To sidestep this problem, you can install an energy recovery ventilator (ERV). It’s a device that pulls in fresh air from the outside without wasting energy. So, you can use it to remove stale air from your home without wasting the cool air from your AC. It won’t introduce additional moisture to your home, either. You can use your ERV when it’s cooler outside or even when your AC is running. While it won’t remove humidity from your indoor air, it will help you keep the outdoor humidity outside. There are also models of ERVs with dehumidifiers built into them. Those will ventilate your home while reducing the indoor humidity at the same time.
Install a Variable-Speed AC
If your home is like most, it likely has a conventional, single-speed AC system. They’re the dominant type of central AC due to their simplicity and relatively low cost. However, here in Tampa Bay, there’s another type of system that you should consider for your home. Variable-speed AC systems offer a variety of advantages over single-speed ones. One of them is that they do a better job of removing humidity from your home’s air. The reason is simple. Variable-speed AC systems turn on at full speed to get your home to the temperature you want. Once they reach it, however, they slow down their motors and compressor to maintain that temperature. This means variable-speed AC systems tend to run at low speeds for long periods of the day. As a result, they can extract more moisture from your home’s air than single-speed systems. On top of that, variable-speed AC systems are more energy efficient, prevent indoor temperature swings, and last longer.
Install a Whole-House Dehumidifier
Finally, the most surefire way you can control the humidity in your Tampa Bay home is with a whole-house dehumidifier. They work in conjunction with your home’s AC to remove humidity from the air. A whole-house dehumidifier works much like a portable unit. The difference is that it uses your home’s ductwork to draw humidity from your whole home. Most whole-house dehumidifiers can remove 10 times the amount of moisture as the average portable unit.
There are two ways you can have a whole-house dehumidifier installed. One is to have it situated between your HVAC return air duct and its air handler. This means your dehumidifier removes moisture and sends drier air into your AC’s indoor unit. However, there’s a better way to install a whole-house dehumidifier. It’s to install a dedicated return duct for the dehumidifier and route the dried air into your existing supply ducts. This allows both your AC and dehumidifier to remove moisture as they work.
Also, installing a dedicated return duct lets your whole-house dehumidifier work more effectively. In an inline configuration, the dehumidifier would push its dry air through your AC’s evaporator coil to reach your home. If your AC has just shut off, its coil will be wet, re-humidifying the air coming from your dehumidifier. With the output of your dehumidifier routed to your supply ducts, this doesn’t happen.
Your Local Indoor Humidity Control Specialists
If your Tampa Bay home has an indoor humidity problem, Ahoy! Cooling & Heating can help. We sell and install a complete line of quality whole-house dehumidifiers. We also offer comprehensive HVAC services, including installation, repair, and maintenance. That includes variable-speed HVAC systems that excel at controlling humidity. We also handle commercial HVAC systems, zoning systems, and ductless HVAC. We’ve served local homeowners since 2010 and offer flat-rate pricing and a peace-of-mind guarantee. We even have over 400 positive reviews from our happy customers. So, if you need help controlling the humidity in your Tampa Bay home, call Ahoy! Cooling & Heating today!
