How To Regulate Your Indoor Humidity During the Winter

Every home can get drafty and cold during the winter season. The drop in humidity is the main perpetrator in this instance, but there’s a way to keep the lack of humidity from making your home an ice box this holiday season. Here are a few great ways that you can regulate your indoor humidity during the winter so that you don’t have to suffer while the temperatures dip.

Add a Few Houseplants

When you add houseplants to your home, you’re improving your decor and benefiting your house by adding living organisms. This means that there will be gas exchanges taking place, as it will release oxygen into the room.

This will refresh the air in your home constantly. Also, every time you water your houseplants, they will maintain a certain level of humidity in their soil. That same humidity will permeate into the air, but it will be a much slower process. This leaves your home with a humidity level low enough that you won’t detect it but high enough to hold a decent amount of heat.

Make Sure To Use Your Stovetop

Any time you’re using your stovetop during the winter, you should always boil water, even if you’re not cooking anything with the water. This is one of the easiest ways to release a decent amount of humidity into the air quickly. And because the kitchen is one of the most commonly used rooms in the home, it makes sense to humidify it as often as possible. You won’t need to do it constantly, but once in the morning and once at night—as that’s when it’s coldest—should do the trick.

Keep Pans and Bowls Full of Water

If you have pets such as cats or dogs, a simple way to humidify your living room or den during the colder months is to keep their water bowls clean and leave them at least half full at all times. This will prevent your home from getting too dry and cool when the weather chills. It may also benefit you to keep the food and water near the front door because most of the winter drafts come in through the doors and windows.

Hang Your Laundry Indoors

An easy way to add some humidity to your home is to leave your laundry out to dry in your hallway or an open space in your home. With the amount of water contained within them, you will make your house smell great and humidified in no time. This is especially great for making the house warm when you don’t want to run the heater. If done correctly, this will make for a comfortable and fresh-smelling environment.

Leave the Door Open While Showering

Another simple way to add moisture back to the air is by taking a shower and leaving the doors to the bathroom and the shower open. If you’re worried about drafts coming in, you can combat them by taking a hotter shower. Even a 20-minute shower should be long enough to humidify most of the house. Your animals and houseplants will appreciate it, too.

Don’t Drain Your Bath Immediately

Just like with your shower, if you have kids and they have daily baths, make sure to bathe them in relatively warm water and leave the water in the tub for a few hours after you take them out and put them to bed. If you do this, the steam will slowly release into the air to give it a low yet consistent flow of moisture that will add humidity to your home.

Keep Weather Stripping Updated

One of the easiest ways to lose heat and humidity in your house is by having an improperly sealed home. Maybe you own an older home that has outdated windows and doors. You will need to update the weatherproofing and seals around your home if this is the case.

You could be losing an exceptional amount of air and heat without even knowing it. The worst part in all of this is that as the cold air comes in from the outside, it dries up the humidity in your home. This makes the indoors match the cold air from the outside.

That’s why you should prevent this by sealing your home off and humidifying it regularly to keep a consistent temperature throughout the winter. When you’re having all of your weather stripping done, you should consider having a mini split complete kit installed in your home as well. This can help you keep the temperature in your home ideal this year.

Release Steam From the Dishwasher

Another way you can get crafty with the humidity is by leaving your dishwasher door open after it finishes cleaning your dishes. The amount of evaporation that comes out of those machines is insane, so you’ll be wasting all of that potential humidity if you don’t make use of it after every rinse. Plus, many people use their dishwashers at least once a day, making them excellent sources of humidity that you should remember to use this winter.

Install a Humidifier

Finally, if none of these solutions work for you, you can always buy a humidifier for your home. These range from inexpensive to super expensive, depending on the type of humidifier you want. The only problem with doing this is you’ll have to remember to keep it clean. You must clean your humidifier often to keep it within working conditions so that it won’t jeopardize your health.

There are many different ways to humidify your home, from having a steaming shower to setting out bowls of water. No matter which solution you choose, ensure you do it often during the winter months to prevent your home from turning into a dungeon that’s impossible to keep warm. This could keep your health and immune system functioning at the peak of winter to help you make it through the cold season and into the spring. These are some of the best ways that you can regulate your indoor humidity during the winter this year.