High humidity can create a suffocating mugginess that so many of us try to avoid. But it goes beyond merely being annoying and uncomfortable. Excess humidity levels can pose some serious dangers to your home in Baltimore, MD. Learn more about a few of the perils of high indoor humidity below.
Causing or Encouraging Biological Growth
It’s well known that moist and humid environments can be enormous breeding grounds for all kinds of biological contaminants. Such biological matter will tend to gather in spots that are as close as possible to the source of the moisture or humidity. That means that if water is leaking from your air conditioner, the material will probably proliferate there. This will impede the functioning of your cooling system.
Also, since air flows constantly through your HVAC system, currents of air will scoop up at least some of that biological material. Your system will then send that material flying throughout your home. This can cause infections, respiratory diseases and other serious health issues.
Damage to Your Home and Furniture
Persistent humidity can cause subtle but significant harm to the structural integrity of your home. This kind of damage may be quite difficult to undo. For example, humidity can make the paint on your home’s walls peel off and crumble to the floor. Even if you repaint your walls, the problem will only resurface if you don’t do anything to tackle the underlying humidity issue.
High humidity can warp or crack anything in your home that’s made of wood. This includes furniture like tables, chairs, bed frames, cabinet doors and countertops. It can also affect your floors, walls and ceilings, which can be particularly difficult to restore to their original shapes. Finally, it can cause condensation to appear on or in between the panes of your windows, distorting them in the process.
If this kind of damage were to occur in multiple areas at once, the consequences would be severe. At the very least, you’d have to pay a significant amount of money to repair the items mentioned above. We strongly recommend installing a dehumidifier to help you regulate your home’s humidity levels.
Damage to Your HVAC System
If water leaks from any part of your HVAC system, it’s a safe bet that something is wrong with it. High humidity means that there’s more condensation in the air and a correspondingly greater chance that such leaks will occur. It doesn’t matter that your system has a series of pans and drainage pipes to get rid of condensate. There’s no good reason to place these components under avoidable strain.
Over time, moisture can also cause critical HVAC components like condensers and ducts to rust, which will cause them to malfunction. Scheduling regular air conditioning maintenance is the best way to catch such issues before they become serious. To minimize your chances of facing them in the first place, you can install a dehumidifier, and properly insulate your doors and windows. There are also other humidity management techniques you can implement.
Attracting Insects
Humidity attracts flies, mosquitoes and other flying insects. No one wants bugs buzzing around them in the midst of spring and summer.
Worsening Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)
We’ve already mentioned how humidity can encourage the growth and spread of harmful biological spores. We know the spores themselves may have a ruinous impact on your indoor air quality. But pollutants like dust and pollen can stick to the minuscule droplets of water that will float through the air once the atmosphere becomes humid enough. This will make said pollutants more difficult to remove, and may require you to purchase more powerful air purifiers.
High humidity may be a slow-acting threat to your home, but it’s a significant one. Call our team at Griffith Energy Services today, and we’ll provide you with all of the HVAC services you need to overcome this threat.
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