On Mar 27, 8:07 am, "Mook Johnson" wrote:
I have a 3 year old house and I'm starting to question the inside air
quality. The house in in Houston TX and as typical its wall to wall carpet.
No pets, no smokers.

I'm noticing that during the day time my wife and I are fine while at work,
when we get home and get ready to go to sleep, our throats get slightly
chapped. Just enough to cause a cough.

My first thought is the humidity is too low so I bought a humidity meter
form home depot. It bottoms out at 30-35% at night. Is that too low? How
do I get the humidity higher automatically whithout using a protable
humidifier.

I was thinking it was caused by a post nasal drip, but we visited a friends
house and neither of us had this problem while sleeping over there
(Lafayette LA).

We have aired the house out several times with no change.

What sort of air quality testing should I do to determine if I have some
kind of air problem.

dust?, mold? humidity too low?

My experience, given lots of allergies, is that 30-35% RH is not a
problem,
in winter. Higher than that, and condensation on some (high-e) windows
comes into play; may not be a problem in Houston, though.

Various humidifiers can be installed, with humidistat at central air-
mover,
as it suits you and your budget.

Dust and mold could be removed with an electrostatic air filter,
in the air-mover, after the mechanical filter. Or you could opt for
local
HEPA filter(s).

Outgassing from lots of stuff could be a problem, too. Filters won't
help there. Air-to-air heat-exchanger, again at central air-mover,
can serve to exchange inside air with outside, on a continuous
basis.

I'd ask reputable HVAC company for options re humidification,
filtering, air-exchange. Might be simplest to do it as a package
deal. This sort of thing has been covered on previous "This Old
House" shows, if that's any help.

HTH,
J