Humidity is a critical element of home health, right alongside top-notch indoor air quality! Like Goldilocks, indoor humidity needs to be at just the correct percentage to ensure your home is safe and healthy. When humidity rises too high, machines such as the Santa Fe Dehumidifier are phenomenal tools to help bring those levels down to a healthy state.

That way, you can rest assured that your indoor environment is supporting your wellness. Here’s why the Santa Fe Dehumidifier can be a great addition to your home.

What is Humidity?

But first, what is humidity and why is it an important thing to focus on in our homes? 

Humidity is a way to describe how much moisture (water vapor) is present in the air. "Relative humidity" is typically how we refer to levels in a home and is expressed as a percentage. The ratio describes the current amount of water vapor in a given area relative to the amount that would be present if the air were saturated.

The more moisture there is in the air, the higher that number will be. Warmer temperatures can hold more moisture, which is why these levels often remain high in many places during the summertime. That being said, other factors like water use in a room can influence the air's moisture.

What is The Ideal Level of Humidity for a Home?

The ideal humidity level in a home should be between 35 and 50 percent. Too high or too low humidity indoors can cause not only wellness issues but also problems with the health of the home as well. 

When the humidity is too high, it can cause microbial growth, poor indoor air quality, and structural issues in the building. However, you also don’t want it to be too dry indoors! That can lead to adverse health reactions and structural problems like wood separation.

Ideal humidity should be maintained not only for comfort but also to maintain a safe indoor environment that promotes ongoing wellness.

Check out this article for more information about why maintaining indoor humidity is so important.

What is a Dehumidifier?

In a nutshell, a dehumidifier helps reduce moisture in a home by eliminating water from the air. This will help you maintain the ideal relative humidity in your home, promoting healthy air quality and a safe indoor environment for you and your family.

Once ideal relative humidity is reached, the dehumidifier should automatically maintain that pre-set level.

Why Use a Dehumidifier like the Santa Fe Dehumidifier?

There are a plethora of reasons why a dehumidifier is a great addition to a home.

1. Prevent Microbial Growth

Some species of mold can grow in humidity that’s 60% and above. Not to mention, high humidity can lead to issues such as condensation or moist porous materials like carpeting. Moisture-related events such as these allow for indoor contaminants like mold to grow. Keeping levels below this level with tools like the Santa Fe Dehumidifier can help prevent these contaminants from developing in your home.

2. Repel Pests

Insects like spiders, roaches, termites, and centipedes gravitate toward areas with higher humidity. If that place just so happens to be inside your home, that’s where they’ll hang out. Reducing indoor humidity with a dehumidifier can help deter these pests from invading your space.

3. Protection for Structural Components

High humidity can cause many issues to the structural integrity of the home. Rotting of elements such as drywall, flooring, and windowsills are prime examples. Maintaining ideal humidity levels helps avoid this situation, saving you from spending money on costly repairs and ensuring your indoor environment is safe.

4. Energy Savings

Higher humidity levels in a home can make it more difficult to heat and cool the space, forcing the HVAC system to work harder to maintain your ideal temperature. This bumps up the money spent on energy throughout the year. While a dehumidifier uses energy, it can help increase energy efficiency by maintaining ideal moisture levels and enabling the HVAC system to run more efficiently. This will cut energy costs in the home and save you money in the long run.

5. Improved Comfort

Very few people (if any!) love a humid indoor environment. Removing moisture from the air helps keep your home a comfortable space where you and your family can relax.

This isn’t a full list of benefits, but it’s a great representation of why using a machine like the Santa Fe Dehumidifier is such a great investment.

When Should You Use a Dehumidifier?

We should use a dehumidifier whenever the humidity rises above 50% indoors, which will vary based on a variety of factors. 

• Seasonally: For many areas across the world, summer weather comes with hotter temperatures and higher humidity outdoors. When there’s more moisture in the outdoor air, this can lead to higher levels of humidity inside our homes during these warmer months. If this is the case, turning on the dehumidifier during this moisture-filled season can help ensure our homes remain healthy year-round.

• Location and Climate: In some areas, the humidity in the outdoor air remains high year-round. Again, this can translate to higher levels of humidity indoors and unhealthy living conditions. Investing in a dehumidifier for a home in these locations can help ensure that while there is high humidity outside, the interior of the house remains at the ideal level.

• Type of Space: Some rooms and spaces in the home naturally have higher levels of humidity. These can include the kitchen, bathrooms, laundry room, crawlspace, and basement. While there are various steps we can take to help maintain healthy levels of humidity in these areas, like focusing on airflow and keeping things dry, sometimes the moisture content in the air just will not lower enough. In this case, having a dehumidifier can help remove excess moisture and keep these spaces safe and healthy.
• Water-damaging Events: Flooding, leaks, broken pipes, and other water-damaging events introduce high levels of moisture into the home and into the air. Mold can grow in as little as 24-48 hours provided with a wet surface, so drying the space out is paramount to helping avoid this contamination. Using a dehumidifier during this time can help ensure the indoor humidity does not remain high, protecting the home from microbial growth and other issues such as structural damage.
• Structural issues: Various issues such as insulation can cause moisture to build up in the air in a home. For example, over-insulation can lead to trapped moisture and condensation because it reduces air ventilation, preventing moist air from escaping and allowing it to build up. Fixing these structural issues is the goal, but sometimes the budget doesn’t allow for these renovations. Installing a dehumidifier can help alleviate this issue by removing as much excess moisture as possible.

Why the Santa Fe Dehumidifier is a Top-Tier Option

There are many reasons why the Santa Fe Dehumidifier is one of the best options for reducing humidity in a home. Here are a few of the top reasons why it can be a great home health tool for you.

Dehumidification

This is obviously the big one! When the humidity is too high in a home, it encourages a host of issues like mold growth. It can also put the home’s structural integrity, as well as the occupant’s comfort, at risk. Using the Santa Fe Dehumidifier helps eliminate these issues by adequately maintaining humidity levels — regardless of how hot it is outside and how much moisture is already in your home. 

Ventilation 

Santa Fe’s Ultra Series whole-house dehumidifiers provide the additional benefit of outdoor mechanical supply ventilation that is filtered through a MERV-13 filter.

Industry-leading Warranty

Every Santa Fe Dehumidifier comes with an industry-leading 6-year warranty. This far exceeds the typical 1-year warranty offered by most dehumidifiers brands.

Superior Filtration

A Santa Fe Dehumidifier comes equipped with a MERV 13 filter, allowing it to remove more particles and small contaminants like mold spores. Over a six-year period, their filters can remove up to 2 pounds of dust, pollen, mold spores, pet dander, and bacteria from the air in your home.

Energy Efficiency 

Every Santa Fe dehumidifier is Energy Star-rated and exceeds Department of Energy requirements.

Options that Work For You

Whatever your humidity needs, there’s a Santa Fe Dehumidifier for you. Between whole-home options, compacts for apartments, and units for areas like crawlspaces, there’s a machine that fits the bill. Not to mention, their large pint capacities, simple draining method, and versatile installation options.

Product Specification PDF

How the Santa Fe Dehumidifier Works

Here’s a condensed version of how the Santa Fe Dehumidifier works.

Step 1: Humid air is pulled into the Santa Fe Dehumidifier through the high-efficiency air filter.

Step 2: This humid air passes over the evaporator coil in the machine. The evaporator coil’s chilly surface, combined with the humid air, forces water to condense and droplets to form on the coil.

Step 3: The condensed water droplets then drip down into the drain pan and run out of the machine through the drain tube. 

Step 4: The air that’s in the machine is now cold and dry and is then passed over the condenser coils and heated. Once it’s warm, the dry air is released back into the indoor environment.

Your Healthy, Dry Environment

Home health is an ongoing process. Think of it like a puzzle! Every piece will eventually come together to create a healthy home that promotes your wellness. Indoor humidity just happens to be a piece of that puzzle and using a Santa Fe Dehumidifier is a phenomenal tool to achieve your ideal living conditions.

Invest in Your Santa Fe Dehumidifier and Healthy Indoor Environment Today