On Saturday, November 22, 2014 6:17:26 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 14:40:50 -0800 (PST), Hongyi Kang
wrote:
On Saturday, November 22, 2014 5:23:59 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 16:44:21 -0500, Don Wiss
wrote:
On Sat, 22 Nov wrote:
What is the humidity in the house? Getting static shocks? Could be
the humidity gauge you're using isn't accurate.
That is my test. Touch a metal light switch plate. If no static shocks
there, or any other place, the humidly is high enough.
But doesn't that depend on what kind of carpet he has, if any, and what
kind of soles there are on the shoes they wear? They both have to be
right to get static.
In 30 years, I've never gotten a static shock in this house**, and for
at least 10 of these years, I've had no humidifier and I'm sure the
humidity was low. In fact an ivory came loose on my piano for the first
time in over 67 years. .
**Because the carpet is synthetic (I'm sure). I'm also not sure if the
rubber-like stuff on the bottom of my slippers and sneakers are the same
kind of rubber that would create a static charge if I had wool carpets..
or whatever pair works.
Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).
AIUI, there are no good humidity gauges that the average person can
afford. That would include the gauge the OP is checking the humidity
with, and the gauge inside the humidifier that attempts to humidify the
household air to a desired humidity.
OP, have you tried just turning that " round knob pointing to different
numbers" to a higher number? Even if those numbers are supposed to be
the percent humidity that the unit will deliver, that doesn't mean they
are. The furnace control in the 50-apartment building I used to live
in didn't attempt to give a temperature, only heat output, for which one
could set it to A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. I think only by trial and
error did the first landlord** find what was the right setting. The
analogy is not perfect, but I think that's how you'll find it too.
Maybe you can borrow another better than average hygrometer from
someone.
Or just set the humidity to maximum, and when water starts dripping off
your windows, etc. keep setting it down a little at a time until nothing
bad is happening, no dripping anywhere that matters, and that will be
the highest humidity your home can have, anyhow. Regardless of your
hardware. Then mark that spot on your knob dial. And you can also
probably find out what the %age is, and interpolate what all the other
numbers on the dial mean.
It bothers me that he charged you for part of a service call because HE
could not find anything wrong. Were you very clear that something WAS
wrong. But in a way there's no point in crying over spilt milk, and
just calibrate the humidifier yourself.
Thanks for the warm reply! I have no carpet in the house and am wearing bamboo slippers all the time, not sure how that's gonna affect static shock though. The 45% is actually the highest setting on this humidifier. I wish I could crank it up any higher lol.
At least for the sake of testing, you can raisse the humidity further by
putting a big pot of water on the stove and boiling it until it's almost
dry. (You can boil it dry for that matter without hurting most pots that
much.) And/or you can stopper the bathtub, turn on the shower all
hot, and just make sure you don't overflow the tub. (You could leave
the tub unstopped, but that's a waste of hot water, and not as
effective, because the water steams off of the surface as much as the
spray.)
It's certainly worth doing this once, to see if it helps your wife. If
it doesn't, then you can just stick with the humidifier as you have it.
The boiling water is better than the shower, I think. You can just keep
adding more hot water to the boiling water, but you can only let the
bathtub fill up so high, and I won't drain the tub until the water is
room temperature.
Both of these, btw, are good ways of making the house feel warm, by
raising the humidity, when the furnace is broken.
However I am seeing frost on the window, is that a sign of too much humidity then?
It's only too much if it bothers you for some reason. It would bother
some of the people here, I think, or at least water on the windows
would, but they don't have a wife with a sore throat. The only
problem with the water is that it might damage the paint on the windows
sills, but you might not have paint or even sills, and you have to
repaiint painted ones once in a while anyhow.
They also worry about mold. I've had black mold for other reasons and
it doesn't bother me, but I'm sure it does bother some people. I killed
it either by removing the source of the wetness (a lot of water just
outside) or with bleach, or with paint with mold suppressor added.
(I thought killing it with bleach would make it turn white again, but
that was silly.)
So I should probably never rely on humidity measurement coming out of the register but instead just judge by the water on window. This whole measuring humidity thing actually started because my wife woke up on a morning about two weeks ago telling me her throat had been burning the whole night and she had to drink water every hour to feel a little better.
This had not bothered her like this before?
Maybe she was also sick with something that she doesn't have anymore.
Or does have and should be treated for it.
So it made her feel worse than it normally will.
I put the humidistat on one of the return registers on the floor on first floor this afternoon and it read 36%. This number actually is consistent with the humidistat by the humidifier, because when I turned the humidistat to under 35%, it would stop the hot water feed to the humidifier. Maybe just like Stormin said, I might need two of these... Or maybe it's time to bleach clean my portable one again XD.
I will definitely try both the boiling water and the bathtub. And thanks
for explaining the window water situation, I think we should be fine with
water on the window then. My wife have had this coughing and sore throat
problem for about 3 years, and it's mainly during winter that it's the
worst. Before I moved into this house I used a portable humidifier to keep
the humidity in bedroom high so that she feels better during the winter.
That was a little problematic because I had to shut off the dry hot air register in that room and keep the door half shut to keep the humidity to be
around 50%. But the room got kinda cold which aggravated her throat as
well. After we moved into this new house when I heard about this whole house
humidifier you can imagine how happy I was. I thought I could keep the
house warm and humid at the same time now
. That's why I felt a little upset when it started to not function as expected since the temperature drop..