Humidity, bane of my summer existence

This has been one of those summers that makes me realize that it truly is a toss up between winter and summer around here. They’re both awful. Although it has been fairly toasty lately, that’s not my gripe. It’s the stinkin’ humidity at rainforest levels. Maybe even higher than rainforest levels. And it has been relentless. Which presents a few problems....

1. Mildew - when the humidity stubbornly stays above 90%, mildew grows rapidly. On everything.

2. Laundry - just try drying clothes on the clothesline when the air is fairly dripping...for days and days on end. See #1.

3. My sheets are clammy and damp—pretty sheets simply do not mitigate the misery.

4. It’s so not fun putting on clothes that feel like I fished them out of a swimming pool 30 seconds ago even though I just pulled them out of the dresser drawer.

5. Damp footprints on the floors and carpets that feel like they were just rained on...ewww!

It really does make me wonder how people used to cope before the advent of electricity. Did they just go about their daily business reeking of mildew? Or what?

I semi-caved this month and my electricity use has about doubled. Which is to say...about 200 kWh this month instead of 100. It pains me enormously, but I just plain reached my tolerance levels for mildew, eternally damp stinky clothes, and leaving damp observable footprints on my floors.

I have used my dryer more this month than the previous 12 months combined. And...I’ve used the air conditioner about 8 days this month so far. At least long enough in the evenings to cool the bedrooms down a bit and wring some of the moisture out of the air (and the sheets).

Adding insult to injury, our air quality has been horrible this month. The weather service has issued air quality alerts several days running and they’re not kidding. I have even noticed that breathing tends to be a bit labored when trying to do anything outside. It even gets noticeable in the house when the house humidity gets into the 80+% range. Quite uncomfortable. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for people with asthma or other respiratory ailments. The humidity, of course, is what intensifies the discomfort.

Well, what’s a person to do? You know, aside from standing on the street corner with a big old sign that screams about air pollution and wasting energy and releasing all sorts of foul gunk into the air? With a face mask on. Like I have a leg to stand on when I’m running the AC and the dryer at full tilt.

Compromises, I suppose. Somewhere (I don’t remember where), yesterday, I read a blurb about such a compromise with regard to AC. As long as the air is dry, people can tolerate a much higher temperature in the house. Now, it’s true that heat doesn’t particularly bother me as long as the air is tolerably dry. And mildew doesn’t thrive in dry air regardless of heat...soooo....

The suggestion offered was using a dehumidifier and a ceiling fan (or other fan) for air circulation.

I dragged out my dehumidifier this morning and plugged it it. The relative humidity in the house was 87%. Pretty uncomfortable. Within a few hours, it had decreased to 56%. The house temp stayed constant at about 79°, but actually felt much cooler than before.

I have the house humidity down to about 52% now and that’s about perfect. I set the dehumidifier dial back a bit so that it only cycles on a couple of times an hour and, so far, the humidity has stayed constant in the house (and it’s drizzling/misting/fogging out with 100% humidity)...using way less electricity than if the AC was on.

Besides that...I can dry clothes on the clothes rack in the house, saving an additional 2-4 kWh per load.

So, I’m calculating that between the AC and the dryer, I’m saving about 12-14 kWh each day that I’m not using them both. The dehumidifier uses (according to my kill-a-watt meter) about 3.8 kWh for a day’s use (about 10 hours). That’s a pretty significant difference while still maintaining comfort and utility (drying clothes sans dryer or mildew...and eliminating mildew altogether). Total daily net savings is about 8.2-10.2 kWh. And that, of course, is not every day of the month...just the most egregiously humid ones....hahaha....when haven’t they been lately?

It’s not a perfect solution, but, in this foul, wretched climate, it is definitely a comfortable and much less energy intensive one.