Humidifying Your Home: A Secret Energy-Saver

With the heat coming, and present here in Texas to a certain extent, you may not have a humidifier high on your to-buy list.

And right now, having more humidity in your home won’t help you in any way.

But for those cooler days when you still want to turn on the heat, humidifiers actually make good sense for helping you reduce your electric bills.

Doesn’t Running a Humidifier Cost You More Electricity?

Yes. But you’ll get a significant net savings.

The idea behind saving energy by running your humidifier is simple: higher relative humidity in your home makes you feel warmer and more comfortable so you don’t go to turn on the heat.

So, while you do burn some electricity running your humidifier, you save more overall energy because you don’t have the heat on.

You’re not likely to have too many of those days in the near future. But you might get one here and there.

However, this certainly plays a much larger role in fall, winter, and perhaps even early spring.

For each degree you lower your thermostat when the heat should be on, you save 4% on your heating bill.

Ideally, you keep the humidity level in your home around 40% during the winter and less than 60% during summer.

What Kind of Humidifier Should You Buy?

The only feature you should absolutely require is a humidifier with a built-in humidistat which keeps the relative humidity in your home stable.

A humidistat responds only to humidity, and not temperature. And it will also tell you the humidity levels in your home so you know you’re within the ideal range.

Then, you simply test by increasing the humidity levels to see where you and your family feel warm and comfortable. At the same time, you lower your thermostat, until you have found the ideal setting for both your humidistat and thermostat.

With a savings of 4% on your heating bill per degree you reduce your thermostat, that could be a nice chunk of cash you add to your wallet throughout the year!