If you monitor your indoor humidity - what is it?

[Cornishbeetlejuice]

I’m just trying to work out what is normal and healthy…

Mine is 61% with the dehumidifier running all day at the moment.

69-75% if it’s raining outside (If we see it’s high like this we will turn the dehumidifier on!)

75% when we wake up but takes 20 mins to reduce down to mid 60s % again. We open the windows every morning. Then close them up and rely on trickle vents.

If it’s sunny the indoor humidity drops to 55%

I just keep reading articles stating 40% - 50% humidity is ideal but to be honest - if it’s as low as this it makes my throat scratchy!

Heating on 19.5c

I live in a bungalow 3 miles from the sea. In a humid part of the SW! We’ve had weeks of fine drizzle & low cloud.

All guttering is clear and we’ve had no leaks. No condensation on windows. And render looks in good condition. No mouldy clothes.

But I do feel a slight obsession with keeping humidity in the low 60s 😂 Anyone else??

86% in my bathroom! 😱

Ooh thanks @Scampuss! That makes sense as to why my humidity increases and decreases over the course of the day.

Is that before or after a shower/bath?😮

Ours is 64 now but I don't check it specifically.

Remember that humans are designed as tropical animals so we are not operating at our best with low humidity.

Also remember that in summer humidity is low both inside and out due to the temperature, and it's low indoors in the winter due to the heating being on full blast and the fact that warm air holds more moisture than warm, so the heating is a dehumidifier. Spring and autumn especially are worse due to the drop in temperature and that we don't have the heating on for long every day. It's normal and you even find that the grass and cars are soaking even though they are in fresh air.

Before 😭 but we still have drizzle outside and low cloud. No breeze.

Damned if I open the windows and damned if I don’t. That’s the worst I’ve ever seen it. Going to check for a leak later even though we have done recently! But it’s just too high!

On a sunny day it’ll naturally be around 55% with no intervention.

Apparently our next sunny day is on Monday!

A steady 64% would be the dream for Autumn

Anywhere from 50-70 for us. Old house (300yrs), lots of trees but on a breezy hill.

@Cornishbeetlejuice Jeez that's strange. I hope you don't have a leak! If not, we've found an extractor fan in the bathroom makes a lot of difference. We run ours all day whenever we see condensation on the windows as we're in a newbuild and the plaster etc is still drying and apparently will be for the next year. Do you have an extractor?

@PrincessAnne4Eva We do, but I don’t think think it’s strong enough. We are having a PIV system installed in January which will help a lot.

Bathroom humidity now down to 70% so that’s a good sign. We haven’t even turned the dehumidifier on yet.

Checked under floor again and no leaks!

I never thought I’d be the type of women to curse and shake my fist at the weather and yet here I am 😂

That's so interesting @Scampuss

Do we have a range of ABSOLUTE humidity which is optimal indoors? Or doesn't it work in that way?

Usually in the 70's or 80's. The odds are fully stacked against us, given where we are and what kind of house we have though.

I just turned the dehumidifer on beside me, and it's 81% so I'll leave it on today.

My parents live in a different city, a couple of miles from the sea with a tiny bit of altitude and in a modern apartment building and 35 - 40% is normal for them. 😭

Our house is an old single glazed bungalow, and humidity in the bedroom is usually in the 70s. I open the windows for a few hours in the morning and it usually gets down to mid 60s. Recently I noticed my Celtic sheepskin slippers feeling clammy in the morning and put a sensor inside...85 straight away! Now I alternate two pairs and keep them on the boiler overnight. I've just ordered a shoe dryer too.

Luckily we are moving next year!

I don't use humid meters/measures as it's pretty obvious if the indoor humidity is too high (eg my bannister feels sticky and books curl).

Why would I put the heating on if my thermometers in the room read 19-20 degrees?

My issue is in Spring and Autumn until the weather gets warmer/colder I have to deal with high humidity inside due to the humidity outside.

Useful thread. I've recently been checking the relative humidity levels in our house. One thing to note (a useful point I picked up from a poster on a different thread) is to check whether your humidity readings are reasonably similar / accurate.
I have 3 which I bought cheap-ish from Amazon, they all read about the same level. I have an older one which reads at a lower level, and then we found another one which turned out to read at a higher level. The total variance between them is 10% to 15%. Clearly they were all cheap (and two of them have been sitting around in drawers for a while, lost) so I'm taking an approach of seeing what the average reading is, while accepting none of them will be fully accurate.

Our house does have high humidity readings, I'm now starting a daily check of opening all the windows for about 30 mins when possible and that seems to help.

I don't have a humidifier but the Google Nest tells me it's currently 58%

I have a Meaco in a back room constantly running on 40 humidity

This is because I also use the room to hang up washing

Mine is 71%. Outside is 91% - it's not raining but it feels very damp outside. I have an air purifier and this is the data it is giving me.

gets to as high as 75% but can keep it to 55 if i use the dehumidifier

If you want to open the windows to air the house it's better to do it earlier in the day when the outside air is colder. As @Scampuss said, warm air holds more moisture. So the morning air will be drier but as it warms up in the course of the day open windows can let more moisture into your house. Think about the early morning dew and how it evaporates (back into the air) by lunchtime.

An RH of 40% - 60% is optimal for humans. 40% at 20c is the minimum guideline for buildings such as offices, but this only a guideline, there are no regulations. Personally I prefer 50% at 22c. ☀️ 💦

Obviously if it's damp, misty, or rainy it doesn't matter when you open the windows as the temperature and humidity can be pretty constant throughout the day.

We have two, one shows 70%, the other 76%. Our measurements are highest this time of the year. We haven't got any damp issues, but I expect condensation for a week or two when it starts to cool off, and the readings will slowly reduce over the winter.

I dry clothes outside, unless I get desperate as it's been raining for 2-3 days. In that case, we do have a small dehumidifier and I close the door and leave it running.

Depends on temperature too.

Well by coincidence I have had an independent damp surveyor round today since my levels are clearly mad.

Amongst many useful things he told me that the mould spoors multiply massively above 70% 😧

54% and 19 degrees in the north facing living room (no windows open)

68% and 17 degrees in the south facing kitchen, window ajar.

63% and 18.5 degrees on the top floor landing, next to the bathroom and the room where I dry laundry, small windows and doors in both rooms open.

We haven’t used our heating at all yet this autumn/winter but the humidity usually goes down a bit when we do.

Also we live by the coast so there is often mist in the air even on dry days