Month: July 2022

Reduce Humidity in Your Home

Posted on July 15, 2022 by - Cooling, Indoor Air Quality

 

High humidity levels in your home in the summertime? You’re hot, sweaty, uncomfortable, and all around miserable when it’s too humid in your home. Not to mention it starts to make your clothes and bedsheets and carpets stink. All you want is a way to relieve the discomfort and get your indoor air quality back on track. Air Design has got your back.

The magic range for ideal indoor humidity is 30-50%. Too much moisture in the air can have you feeling hot, and uncomfortable, and can have a damaging effect on your home. Too much humidity causes mold growth and can create condensation in your walls and on your ceiling. This leads to structural damage and wood rot. This is especially true in the south, where we live. Too much humidity is also bad for you and your lungs. It can lead to respiratory problems, allergies, and more. At a humidity level of 30-50%, you find the balance between too much moisture and not enough, which keeps both you and your home comfortable.

How Can I Tell If My Home is Too Humid?

The easiest way to find out the humidity levels in your home is to purchase a hygrometer. They’re not expensive and you can find them at your local hardware store.

How Can I Reduce My Humidity Levels?

  1. Run Your Air Conditioner. Your air conditioner naturally helps reduce indoor humidity because it’s introducing cooler air while removing warm, humid air. Keep humidity under control by getting your air conditioner tuned up by a professional, and frequently change the filters. Anything that restricts airflow or causes your air conditioner to stop working is no friend to you.
  2. Use Your Vents. When you take a shower be sure to run your vents or open a window to let the hot steamy air flow back out of your home. When cooking on a stove top run your vents so the steam has somewhere to escape.
  3. Fix Any Leaking Pipes. Leaking pipes and faucets will add moisture to the air. Fix any leaks you have and wrap your exposed pipes in insulators to keep condensation from forming. Signs of leaks include stained drywall, wet spots, and irregular water bills.
  4. Dry Your Laundry Outside. Most of us have clothes we can’t put in the dryer. Some people hang these in the laundry room to air dry. In the summer, all those damp clothes will just help make your home more humid.
  5. Get a Dehumidifier. The most effective way to reduce indoor humidity is to get a dehumidifier. These can be small units in your problem rooms or installed as part of a whole home system. The best part is you will use your air conditioner a lot less, because it now has help keeping down the humidity. That means less cash spent on cooling bills.
  6. Move Your House Plants Outside. Plants are beautiful and provide oxygen, but they do release their fair share of moisture as well. If your home has a lot of indoor plants, this could be causing your humidity level to increase. Just place them outside when you can or move them to a more ventilated room.

We know summers in Florida are hard to keep your home humidity levels low, especially with all this rain we’ve been getting but try a few of these tips and see if your levels don’t even out more. If you’d rather have a professional assess your options give us a call at 202-COOL today.

 

AC Maintenance Tips for the Florida Summer

Posted on July 15, 2022 by - Blog, Caring for your AC, Cooling, Heating

 

We all know Florida summers can be brutal, and the last thing you want is to be without AC. Keep your Pensacola home cool and avoid emergency calls over the summer by following these easy summer HVAC maintenance tips:

1. Replace your air filter. An unclogged air filter allows the air to flow evenly throughout your entire home. Checking the filter or filters, depending on how many intakes you have, is the first task on your list this summer. This is especially important now because your HVAC system is in high gear and gets a lot of use over these warmer months.

2. Tidy up the outdoor unit. As you’re getting your yard ready for those summer barbecues, don’t forget to clean up around the outside unit of your HVAC system. Clear away high weeds growing up around it or through the cables. Wipe away any build-up on the top or leaves that have fallen on it. When weed eating around it be sure to watch out so you don’t nick the unit and damage it.

3. Seal up leaky spaces. Check your outside doors and windows to see if there are any places around the edges where that wonderful, cooled air is escaping. Withering insulation around doors, windows, or even around air ducts will make your unit work harder to cool down your space.

4. Upgrade your thermostat. Do you still have an old-school thermostat that only allows you to set the temperature in your home to one setting? Many people have upgraded to a scheduled thermostat or even WIFI-controlled ones you can change from your phone. Not only is it convenient to turn down the temp of your home before you get there but it also saves on energy by setting it to low temps while you are home and going back up when you’re not.

5. Schedule an HVAC maintenance appointment with the professionals. There are certainly many advantages to having one of our expert techs come out to service your HVAC system this summer, even if you’ve done all of the tips we listed and are still facing high energy bills or your home won’t cool off to your desired temperature. An Air Design Technician will be able to analyze and replace components within your unit or advise you what size unit you may need to get the proper temperatures in your home.

Need to schedule HVAC maintenance from the professionals this summer? The team at Air Design is ready to help! You can call us day or night at 202-COOL!