If you want to learn more about how to calculate dew point, and how it relates to RH and temperature, check out this video of mine about DEHUMIDIFICATION: th-cam.com/video/JOZ5TZ-oaP8/w-d-xo.html Calculating dew point is a bit more necessary in warmer weather, when dehumidifying, but it’s always good to know!
I am building a house in the Sonoran desert. I'm aiming for Passive House standards, but I won't weep if I miss it by a bit. The walls will be adobe with a wood frame interior with thick insulation between the inner and outer wall. I plan to install a Zehnder ventilation system with HEPA filter. I discovered clay plaster interior walls, and will use them. Clay plaster, sometimes called Venetian plaster, is very different than the lime plaster so common back east where you live. The primary components are: bentonite clay, mixed with other clays for color, sand, and fiber. Bentonite clay is strongly hydrophilic. So hydrophilic, in fact, that it is routinely used to stop up leaky dams and ponds. Whenever the air is humid, the clay walls absorb moisture. When the air is dry, the clay dries, releasing moisture evenly and slowly throughout the space. The relative humidity (sorry, I understand dew point, but that was not the measure used to describe this material) remains a pretty tight 50% to 55%. These walls have been used successfully in Jordan (only 8" of rain per year) and in Japan (52" of rain per year). In both cases, the clay plaster prevented mold growth in humid areas (the whole house in Japan) and wet areas like bathrooms and laundry rooms (in Jordan). I'm much more enthusiastic about a 'set-it-and-forget-it' eco-friendly, zero-maintenance solution over expensive high-maintenance less eco-friendly machines. My only quibble with your excellent and informative video is that heating - especially forced air systems - desiccate the air as well. Love your content - keep up the good work!
Your home building plans sound very cool indeed! I'd love to hear how it turns out. Set-it-and-forget-it is my kinda thing. I want to clarify that forced air doesn't inherently dry your home (unless you have major duct leakage) - it's more about the type of combustion used and whether it's within the conditioned space. To be clear, heating air in general doesn't inherently make it drier. Heating air lowers RH, but absolute humidity remains constant. One particular heating scenario can dry out your air though: atmospheric combustion appliances within your conditioned space. Atmospheric combustion appliances use the air within your home for combustion, and exhaust it outside, so drier outdoor air (in cold weather) rushes inside to replace the combusted air that exhausted outside. This might be a good idea for a future video. Thanks for your feedback as always!
@@HealthyHomeGuide You're welcome - and thanks for the clarification. So, it doesn't actually get drier, it just feels dryer. Yes, I think a video comparing various heat sources would be very interesting and valuable. I'm a westerner and only familiar with Forced Air (usually gas-fired) systems. I'm clueless about radiant, boiler heaters, baseboard heat and fuel oil systems.
Great stuff. I have been giving indoor RH a lot of thought lately with a tropical heatwave on (Australia) and RH indoors (with air conditioning) above 70, even 80% (at around 22deg C). (Outdoors has been ~70% RH at 30 deg C) I’m not an expert (at all) on these matters and the research and presentation you provide is helpful- thank you!
@@HealthyHomeGuidecloth masks don't stop anything. Two layers of cloth can't stop the smell of baked bread, cookies, not farts...which are ALL over 300 to 409 nanometers... ""V"" particles attached to aerosolized water molecules are in the range of 5 nanometers to 6.5 nanometers... You're literally the equivalent ratio of using CHAIN LINK FENCING to filter out mosquitoes. Surgical masks don't "filter" ANYTHING -- they are to stop SPIT from talking landing in OPEN WOUNDS and to prevent BLOOD SPLATTER into an open mouth ... Take a VAPE/ELECTRONIC cigarette and go stand in front of a mirror. You'll see the huge clouds flying through your make be-LIE-fs. EDIT: in fact, post yourself doing that on your rebuttal video! .
I live in southern California, and generally feel comfortable with an indoor relative humidity of 30 - 40%. In winter, we experience 45 - 55% which begins to feel uncomfortable above 50%.
This was fascinating and I will share with family members who live in cold climates. Honestly not sure how to parse this 40-60% for my own situation. On average the dewpoint here is 25C (80% RH, 29C). I track it closely to ensure my room warms up enough in the morning before I leave the door open to avoid condensation (I have the AC on overnight). Time to hunt down relevant research for the tropics.
I'd been wondering what your next video would be and this one didn't disappoint. I've been thinking about dew point more in relation to preventing condensation in conditioned attics and overall building health. I wish more monitors displayed it along with relative humidity but playing with dew point calculators has helped. Last year I monitored relative humidity all winter to see if adding a central steam humidifier to my heat pump made sense. My humidity level never dropped below 30%, likely due in part to having 3-5 people in the house and frequent cooking. So far this year humidity stays in the 30s to low 40s with my dehumidifier set to kick on at 40%. Being in climate zone 3 we could go higher but I find I feel better at 30-40%. If it were to stay below that I'd look into a ~$1000 (plus install if not diy) Honeywell or aprilaire steam humidifier tied into my ductwork with the main maintenance being replacement of a $100 canister each year. I'd set the humidifier for 30%. As I near completion of installing my broan erv and begin running it I'll have to make sure I don't ventilate so much that humidity drops too low, but with an erv vs hrv that should be less of an issue.
hmm, kinda confused on dew point, rh and how it relates to temperature. do you know how I can calculate if my room is in a safe range? I have that CO2 monitor that you have, looks like it displays rh.
Thank you for your thorough research and sharing your findings!! In 10 years of living is superbly humid environment Thailand, and developing an autoimmune disease, I'd say, mould hazard is real! Having moved to the middle east (desert dry environment), I'm still baffled and unsure how to improve the air quality. Since using the airconditioning (which has to run 24-7) only dries everything for me (skin, hair, inside of the nostrils)...Do you think it would be reasonable to use humidifier in this case? Thank you so much
You're so welcome! I'm glad you understand the message. My advice to you would be to buy a hygrometer, if you haven't already. Since you're talking about cooling season in a hot climate, assuming your home's temperature is 70F (21C), you can humidify up to 50% RH, but not higher than that. Use your hygrometer to gauge this. There are also lots of other things you can do to improve air quality, which my channel has other videos on. Thank you!
I live in Northern ireland and just bought myself a Humidifier, mostly for my Plants and together with Lavender oil to repel Gnats . My humidity is currently around 75% according to you , this is bad ??
Assuming your indoor temp is around 70F (21C), yes, 75% is too high. This isn't just according to me, by the way, virtually the entire building science field would agree.
Like I discussed in the video, relative humidity isn't a good way to measure humidity. But anyway, where you live in Northern Ireland, it doesn't get particularly humid outside. It also doesn't get very hot or cold. You're not someone who has to be very concerned about humidity. If I were you, I just wouldn't add extra moisture to the air by humidifying for reasons outlined in the video. But do what you want, of course.
Can I ask you how does your ERV affect your indoor humidity levels? Is an HRV better vs an ERV? I saw this on Amazon (which I assume you can link up to an ERV): AprilAire 800 Whole-House Steam Humidifier, Automatic Steam Humidifier - would that work? As always thank you for your channel - it has been very helpful!
The one thing that makes ERVs so much better than HRVs is the fact that ERVs “balance” moisture between the incoming and outgoing airstreams - they help prevent your house from getting too dry in the winter or too humid in the summer (though I still recommend a dehumidifier in the summer to work with the ERV). HRVs do not balance moisture at all, and are thus a worse option. HRVs tend to dry out the air in the winter, and add too much humidity in the summer. I have another video on humidifying if you’re interested in that. I don’t personally need to humidify at all, especially with my ERV preventing my house from losing too much humidity in the winter!
@@HealthyHomeGuidegot you. Thanks so much Yeah I have baseboard radiators . They tend to really dry out my air. So I am not sure if the ERV still makes sense cause the air is even dryer in my house than outside. Does that make sense?
@chrisjabre You’re welcome! I want to clarify that heating systems do not inherently dry your home’s air - it's more about the type of combustion used and whether it's within the conditioned space. To be clear, heating air in general doesn't inherently make it drier. Heating air lowers RH, but absolute humidity remains constant. One particular heating scenario can cause absolute humidity to decrease though: atmospheric combustion appliances within your conditioned space. Atmospheric combustion appliances use the air within your home for combustion, and exhaust it outside, so drier outdoor air (in cold weather) rushes inside to replace the combusted air that exhausted outside. So that COULD be happening to you, however, the absolute humidity (or dew point, however you want to measure the true amount of water vapor in your air) would never be lower inside your house than it is outside in the winter unless you were dehumidifying. So yeah, no issue with getting an ERV from that standpoint. Fun fact: I have an atmospheric combustion heating system (the bad kind that causes dry winter air to come inside) and I’m still benefiting from an ERV.
What type of masks? The cheap chinese/indian blue ones littered across the entire world don't do much. If an N95 mask I used at work at an attempt to filter wild-fire smoke from thousands of miles away didn't work then those blue ones are just for show. Definitely need N100 for very small microns if that even helps. Just don't be around kids & shop at the least popular times, unfortunately not all can do that.
Check the description for a link to a large scientific review showing that masks prevent respiratory illness. It contains 413 references. Very reliable data source. What evidence do you have?
Why is that? I get sick way less since I started wearing one. I don't feel like a slave. I actually feel free! Free from frequently getting sick. Nobody makes me wear one, I wear one because I want to.
If you want to learn more about how to calculate dew point, and how it relates to RH and temperature, check out this video of mine about DEHUMIDIFICATION: th-cam.com/video/JOZ5TZ-oaP8/w-d-xo.html
Calculating dew point is a bit more necessary in warmer weather, when dehumidifying, but it’s always good to know!
I am building a house in the Sonoran desert. I'm aiming for Passive House standards, but I won't weep if I miss it by a bit. The walls will be adobe with a wood frame interior with thick insulation between the inner and outer wall. I plan to install a Zehnder ventilation system with HEPA filter. I discovered clay plaster interior walls, and will use them. Clay plaster, sometimes called Venetian plaster, is very different than the lime plaster so common back east where you live. The primary components are: bentonite clay, mixed with other clays for color, sand, and fiber. Bentonite clay is strongly hydrophilic. So hydrophilic, in fact, that it is routinely used to stop up leaky dams and ponds. Whenever the air is humid, the clay walls absorb moisture. When the air is dry, the clay dries, releasing moisture evenly and slowly throughout the space. The relative humidity (sorry, I understand dew point, but that was not the measure used to describe this material) remains a pretty tight 50% to 55%. These walls have been used successfully in Jordan (only 8" of rain per year) and in Japan (52" of rain per year). In both cases, the clay plaster prevented mold growth in humid areas (the whole house in Japan) and wet areas like bathrooms and laundry rooms (in Jordan). I'm much more enthusiastic about a 'set-it-and-forget-it' eco-friendly, zero-maintenance solution over expensive high-maintenance less eco-friendly machines. My only quibble with your excellent and informative video is that heating - especially forced air systems - desiccate the air as well. Love your content - keep up the good work!
Your home building plans sound very cool indeed! I'd love to hear how it turns out. Set-it-and-forget-it is my kinda thing.
I want to clarify that forced air doesn't inherently dry your home (unless you have major duct leakage) - it's more about the type of combustion used and whether it's within the conditioned space. To be clear, heating air in general doesn't inherently make it drier. Heating air lowers RH, but absolute humidity remains constant.
One particular heating scenario can dry out your air though: atmospheric combustion appliances within your conditioned space. Atmospheric combustion appliances use the air within your home for combustion, and exhaust it outside, so drier outdoor air (in cold weather) rushes inside to replace the combusted air that exhausted outside. This might be a good idea for a future video. Thanks for your feedback as always!
@@HealthyHomeGuide You're welcome - and thanks for the clarification. So, it doesn't actually get drier, it just feels dryer. Yes, I think a video comparing various heat sources would be very interesting and valuable. I'm a westerner and only familiar with Forced Air (usually gas-fired) systems. I'm clueless about radiant, boiler heaters, baseboard heat and fuel oil systems.
Tnx for celsius info!❤
You're very welcome!
Great stuff. I have been giving indoor RH a lot of thought lately with a tropical heatwave on (Australia) and RH indoors (with air conditioning) above 70, even 80% (at around 22deg C). (Outdoors has been ~70% RH at 30 deg C) I’m not an expert (at all) on these matters and the research and presentation you provide is helpful- thank you!
Glad I could help! Wow, 80% RH must be quite uncomfortable. If you haven't seen it, you might find my video on dehumidification to be helpful.
I love the winter when RH is below 30%. I never considered getting a Humidifier. Now summer when it hits 60%, that's gross.
Me too. High humidity bothers me a lot more than low humidity.
60% RH in summer??? where do you live? I’m in the southeast US so i’m just intrigued
@@cameronsmoot6386 I'm talking about indoors. Outdoors it's often above 90%...
@@HealthyHomeGuidecloth masks don't stop anything. Two layers of cloth can't stop the smell of baked bread, cookies, not farts...which are ALL over 300 to 409 nanometers... ""V"" particles attached to aerosolized water molecules are in the range of 5 nanometers to 6.5 nanometers... You're literally the equivalent ratio of using CHAIN LINK FENCING to filter out mosquitoes.
Surgical masks don't "filter" ANYTHING -- they are to stop SPIT from talking landing in OPEN WOUNDS and to prevent BLOOD SPLATTER into an open mouth ...
Take a VAPE/ELECTRONIC cigarette and go stand in front of a mirror. You'll see the huge clouds flying through your make be-LIE-fs.
EDIT: in fact, post yourself doing that on your rebuttal video!
.
I live in southern California, and generally feel comfortable with an indoor relative humidity of 30 - 40%. In winter, we experience 45 - 55% which begins to feel uncomfortable above 50%.
Do you use air humidifier? It’s very dry where I live but I don’t want the risk of mold either by using humidifiers.. 🤔
This was fascinating and I will share with family members who live in cold climates. Honestly not sure how to parse this 40-60% for my own situation. On average the dewpoint here is 25C (80% RH, 29C). I track it closely to ensure my room warms up enough in the morning before I leave the door open to avoid condensation (I have the AC on overnight). Time to hunt down relevant research for the tropics.
I'd been wondering what your next video would be and this one didn't disappoint. I've been thinking about dew point more in relation to preventing condensation in conditioned attics and overall building health. I wish more monitors displayed it along with relative humidity but playing with dew point calculators has helped.
Last year I monitored relative humidity all winter to see if adding a central steam humidifier to my heat pump made sense. My humidity level never dropped below 30%, likely due in part to having 3-5 people in the house and frequent cooking.
So far this year humidity stays in the 30s to low 40s with my dehumidifier set to kick on at 40%. Being in climate zone 3 we could go higher but I find I feel better at 30-40%. If it were to stay below that I'd look into a ~$1000 (plus install if not diy) Honeywell or aprilaire steam humidifier tied into my ductwork with the main maintenance being replacement of a $100 canister each year. I'd set the humidifier for 30%.
As I near completion of installing my broan erv and begin running it I'll have to make sure I don't ventilate so much that humidity drops too low, but with an erv vs hrv that should be less of an issue.
It sounds like you have a great grasp on what it takes to keep your home healthy! Your approach sounds smart. Glad this video didn't disappoint.
lots of good info here. we should all be referencing Dew Point in our daily lives. plus Dry bulb (temperature to most people), not RH.
Amen!
hmm, kinda confused on dew point, rh and how it relates to temperature. do you know how I can calculate if my room is in a safe range? I have that CO2 monitor that you have, looks like it displays rh.
Thanks for the comment! I have a video on DEhumidification that I linked in the description as a resource. That video will answer your question.
I was considering getting a humidifier. Not anymore. Thanks!
Good choice!
Thank you for your thorough research and sharing your findings!! In 10 years of living is superbly humid environment Thailand, and developing an autoimmune disease, I'd say, mould hazard is real! Having moved to the middle east (desert dry environment), I'm still baffled and unsure how to improve the air quality. Since using the airconditioning (which has to run 24-7) only dries everything for me (skin, hair, inside of the nostrils)...Do you think it would be reasonable to use humidifier in this case? Thank you so much
You're so welcome! I'm glad you understand the message. My advice to you would be to buy a hygrometer, if you haven't already. Since you're talking about cooling season in a hot climate, assuming your home's temperature is 70F (21C), you can humidify up to 50% RH, but not higher than that. Use your hygrometer to gauge this. There are also lots of other things you can do to improve air quality, which my channel has other videos on. Thank you!
I live in Northern ireland and just bought myself a Humidifier, mostly for my Plants and together with Lavender oil to repel Gnats . My humidity is currently around 75% according to you , this is bad ??
Assuming your indoor temp is around 70F (21C), yes, 75% is too high. This isn't just according to me, by the way, virtually the entire building science field would agree.
@@HealthyHomeGuide in "summer" we have 80% humidity anyway, I guess we all die ?
Like I discussed in the video, relative humidity isn't a good way to measure humidity. But anyway, where you live in Northern Ireland, it doesn't get particularly humid outside. It also doesn't get very hot or cold. You're not someone who has to be very concerned about humidity. If I were you, I just wouldn't add extra moisture to the air by humidifying for reasons outlined in the video. But do what you want, of course.
Can I ask you how does your ERV affect your indoor humidity levels? Is an HRV better vs an ERV? I saw this on Amazon (which I assume you can link up to an ERV): AprilAire 800 Whole-House Steam Humidifier, Automatic Steam Humidifier - would that work?
As always thank you for your channel - it has been very helpful!
The one thing that makes ERVs so much better than HRVs is the fact that ERVs “balance” moisture between the incoming and outgoing airstreams - they help prevent your house from getting too dry in the winter or too humid in the summer (though I still recommend a dehumidifier in the summer to work with the ERV). HRVs do not balance moisture at all, and are thus a worse option. HRVs tend to dry out the air in the winter, and add too much humidity in the summer.
I have another video on humidifying if you’re interested in that. I don’t personally need to humidify at all, especially with my ERV preventing my house from losing too much humidity in the winter!
@@HealthyHomeGuidegot you. Thanks so much
Yeah I have baseboard radiators . They tend to really dry out my air. So I am not sure if the ERV still makes sense cause the air is even dryer in my house than outside. Does that make sense?
@chrisjabre You’re welcome! I want to clarify that heating systems do not inherently dry your home’s air - it's more about the type of combustion used and whether it's within the conditioned space. To be clear, heating air in general doesn't inherently make it drier. Heating air lowers RH, but absolute humidity remains constant.
One particular heating scenario can cause absolute humidity to decrease though: atmospheric combustion appliances within your conditioned space. Atmospheric combustion appliances use the air within your home for combustion, and exhaust it outside, so drier outdoor air (in cold weather) rushes inside to replace the combusted air that exhausted outside.
So that COULD be happening to you, however, the absolute humidity (or dew point, however you want to measure the true amount of water vapor in your air) would never be lower inside your house than it is outside in the winter unless you were dehumidifying. So yeah, no issue with getting an ERV from that standpoint.
Fun fact: I have an atmospheric combustion heating system (the bad kind that causes dry winter air to come inside) and I’m still benefiting from an ERV.
So you seal all air leaks but then what about the build up of C02 ? How to mitigate / overcome this ?
Energy recovery ventilators are a great solution.
What type of masks? The cheap chinese/indian blue ones littered across the entire world don't do much. If an N95 mask I used at work at an attempt to filter wild-fire smoke from thousands of miles away didn't work then those blue ones are just for show. Definitely need N100 for very small microns if that even helps. Just don't be around kids & shop at the least popular times, unfortunately not all can do that.
N95, KN95. I get my mask information from Aaron Collins' testing (Mask Nerd). My favorite mask is the 3M VFlex.
once you says "Masks" you lost me............and now i don't believe the rest you said earlier........bye
Check the description for a link to a large scientific review showing that masks prevent respiratory illness. It contains 413 references. Very reliable data source. What evidence do you have?
@@HealthyHomeGuide masks are for slaves and sheep
@@HealthyHomeGuide plenty
Why is that? I get sick way less since I started wearing one. I don't feel like a slave. I actually feel free! Free from frequently getting sick. Nobody makes me wear one, I wear one because I want to.
Using a humidifier makes you 🏳️🌈