I grew up in a home without air conditioning and our means of heat were those long metal strips that go on the floor called baseboard heaters. Coming from that you can understand why I had no idea of what a humidifier did to a home. After my first winter with one I completely understand the benefits of them.
In the pre-humidifier winter months, I dreaded a few things about being in our home:
- Numerous sore throats
- Very dry skin
- I couldn’t touch my wife without shocking her
- My personal favorite, one of our Golden Doodles walked around with her hair sticking straight out appearing that she had been electrocuted.
- My clothes would stick to me when I was in the house.
I’m not a science guy and not that interested in why this was happening in the winter months. If you are interested in that sort of thing, check out the Whole-Home Humidifier page on Aprilaire.com for a good explanation. I just wanted these things to go away and for my home to not be possessed, like it was the remainder of the year.
I had numerous people tell me that a Whole-House Humidifier would cure these things, but I was honestly pretty skeptical. I took the plunge anyway and had one installed.
The changes I noticed to the home were almost immediate (it did take about a day for the home to reach the proper humidity level). My dog had a much better look, I no longer shocked my wife when I touched her, and my clothes no longer felt glued to me. Within the next week or so I can say my skin was less dry and felt close to how it felt throughout the rest of the year.
The most important thing I wanted to fix, and the least likely in my mind, were the sore throats. These haven’t completely gone away and I will still wake up with one from time to time, but since having the humidifier installed I can say that I’ve gone entire winters without having a sore throat. That’s a major win from what I used to deal with.
Will a Whole-Home Humidifier change your life? No, but I can tell you it will make some of those annoyances of the dry winter air go away.
