How to Set a Humidistat at Home for Maximum Comfort?

setting humidistat right

Learning how to set your humidistat is a crucial step to controlling the moisture inside your home.

In fact, if you are looking for a better way to manage humidity levels in your home at all times of the year, it’s time to learn which humidistat settings are correct for you and how to do all these settings on different models and devices.

How to Set a Humidistat?

If you’re new to a humidistat, you may be surprised to learn that different settings are required to regulate your home’s humidity levels at varied times of the season, which means there’s no one setting that’s perfect for your home at all times.

Instead, experts recommend changing your humidistat setting based on several factors. For starters, you’ll want to use a different setting if you’re not at home, and you’ll want to adjust your settings when the weather changes seasons.

Essentially, these devices use electrical signals to detect moisture levels in the atmosphere around them. Depending on the setting, these machines will regulate the humidity in the air around you to keep your home comfortable and free of mold.

Understanding this, let’s take a deeper look at what humidistat settings you should use.

In Winter

So it’s colder outside, so you can raise your humidity levels, right?

Actually, wrong.

While it may be tempting to view your humidistat like a standard thermostat, doing so can have severe consequences for your home.

How so?

Simply put, when the outside temperature drops, this colder outside temperature can interact with warmer, more humid temperatures on the inside of your house and perform structural damage to your walls and windows.

This damage results from condensation that takes place as the more humid air in your home is drawn to the colder temperatures outside.

To mitigate this damage, we recommend lowering your humidistat during the winter months, mainly when it’s cold outside.

Of course, you must remember that these are just general guidelines, and knowing where to set your best humidifier in winter will depend mainly on the weather of your geographic location.

what to set humidistat at in winter

In Summer

The summer months are often the most humid.

That’s why you must keep a clamp on inside humidity when it starts getting muggy outside.

As you might expect, experts recommend pretty low humidity levels for your home during the summer months.

Specifically, humidity levels between 35-45% are perfect for when the outside air starts getting swampy. This will keep the humidity that dominates outdoors away from the inside of your home, preventing excess mold growth and giving you freedom from suffocating moisture.

Keep in mind that your specific humidity level will largely be determined by geography.

As such, you may find that a lower or higher humidistat level is needed. Remember to check your windows to make sure and always adjust accordingly.

When Away

What if you plan to be away from your home for an extended period?

In the case of extended absence, experts recommend different humidity levels.

Specifically, you have two goals when you set your humidistat before going on vacation: saving energy and keeping mold out of your house.

While keeping your humidistat on your standard settings would be nice, this can lead to excess energy use and a spiked electricity bill if you are on vacation. For this reason, you must pay attention to your humidistat level before leaving your home.

But what level is appropriate for your humidistat?

According to data, mold begins to grow at around 68% humidity. Because many humidistats are off by a degree of up to ten, you should play on the safe side and set your device to 58% relative humidity. This will save you money while preventing mold growth in your home.

In conjunction, we recommend that you match your thermostat setting to complement your humidistat levels.

If you know you will be away from home for an extended period, consider leaving your thermostat between seventy-seven and eighty degrees Fahrenheit.

When at Home

At home? Then you don’t have much to worry about.

All you need to do is adjust your humidistat to whatever humidity level is comfortable for you. This means you turn the machine on and put it on your desired relative humidity level.

You will be able to tell by the moisture in the air whether or not the humidity in your house has reached an acceptable level.

Simply play with the nozzle until you reach a level that feels right for you.

In general, humidity levels between 30-55% are considered normal, with those between 35-45% being ideal. We recommend you try these levels out first, but feel free to adjust your humidistat if you aren’t comfortable.

Keep in mind, however, that your windows will begin to collect water if the inside of your house remains humid. For this reason, always check your windows if you feel that the air around you is too humid and adjust accordingly.

Humidistat Setting Guide

Humidistat Setting Chart

Depending on the outside temperature, you can set your humidistat on the most comfortable levels.

As a general rule, the lower the outdoor temperature, the lower should be the recommended humidity setting.

You can set your humidistat at one percent below the level where the moisture starts to condense on a single-pane window.

The below chart can help you further in deciding the setting you can use for your humidistat irrespective of the season or environmental conditions.

Humidistat Setting Chart

Ideal Humidistat Setting for Attic Fan

Installing an attic fan with a humidistat can effectively control the heat and humidity, particularly during hot summer days.

However, maintaining ideal attic temperatures and humidity settings can be a challenging task for most of us.

Generally, the temperature in your attic should be close to the outdoor temperature (not more than 10-20 degrees hotter than outside).

If it is, it can easily strain your air conditioning and energy bills and to avoid this situation, you need to consult a professional to make your attic well-ventilated by installing an attic fan.

Controlling the humidity levels of your attic is also important as it can easily make or break the performance of your HVAC systems.

Normally the humidistat setting should range between 15 to 50 percent. However, it should also depend on the season, and the temperature outdoors as well as indoors.

Heavy condensation can lead to mold buildup and other structural problems in your attic. Therefore, you should ensure that the humidity levels do not rise above the recommended levels.

If you find the levels rising than usual (like in warm weather), you may need to consider installing a good dehumidifier.

The Bottom Line

So what does all this mean for you? For starters, it means that there’s no one setting that will satisfy all your humidistat needs.

As such, you are responsible for adjusting your humidistat with changes in your home’s weather and occupancy status.

In general, you’ll want to keep your humidistat levels between 35-45%, with variations when necessary.

Keeping your home’s humidity levels low not only allows you and your family to stay comfortable but also prevents the growth and spread of mold throughout your house. For these reasons, we recommend that you follow these guidelines to keep the ideal humidity level in your home at all times.

In doing so, you can keep your home in tip-top shape and ensure that it never feels muggy—no matter how bad it feels outside.