Can You Use a Humidifier in the Winter? It’s Good for Eyes, Skin, Static Shock and Your Items

Why do you need the best humidifier for winter?

After all, we know that in winter, the outdoors are mostly cold and damp. However, the indoor air during the winter is too dry.

So, can you use a humidifier in the winter? When you turn on the heating, it warms the air, and dries out the little moisture that is in it. That is why you need to increase the indoor humidity. A humidifier is going to help you keep indoor relative humidity between 30 and 55 percent.

You can buy a small portable humidifier or a whole house humidifier. There are even smaller desktop units for your office space alone.

A humidifier is supposed to increase the moisture content in the air. Most people wonder why it is paramount to have one in the winter when it is already cold and damp.

Well, there is a perfectly logical explanation for this. Keep reading!

Main reasons to use a humidifier for winter

Should I use a humidifier for winter

In winter, you will turn up the heating to feel warm and comfortable. This warmth and comfort bring with it a few problems.

One of them is that the heat dries all of the moisture from the air. Low humidity ill effects on health come in their numbers.

Inhaling dry air hurts your airways, especially if you have a cold, asthma, or respiratory problem. That is why we have the best humidifiers for colds.

Dry air sucks the moisture out of your skin. This leaves your skin feeling chapped and itchy.

That is not very comfortable!

And yes, it is perfectly possible to have cold and damp air outdoors and, at the same time, warm and dry air in the house.

Have a look at how humidity decreases with a decrease in temperature:

  • Minus 20° F; humidity is at 15% or lower
  • Minus 10° F; humidity is at 20%
  • 0° F—humidity is at 25%
  • 10° F—humidity is at 30%
  • 20° F—humidity is at 35%
  • 40° F—humidity is at 40%

From these figures alone, you can guess that in summer, you will need a dehumidifier, and in winter, you will need a humidifier.

Here are the 8 main reasons why you need to run your humidifier in winter:

1. A humidifier prevents dry skin in winter

This is one of the chief reasons why you would need the best humidifier for sinuses and cold weather. You can help your skin retain its moisture.

For your skin to retain its natural moisture, keep your indoor humidity level at 40 percent at its lowest.

When we run the radiator to turn up the heat, the moisture content indoors dips below 43 percent. The skin starts to feel itchy, dry, and uncomfortable. You need to humidify the air for your skin.

If you have a baby, you will need a humidifier in their room during the winter. It is perfectly safe to have a humidifier in the baby’s room all the time.

If a grownup can feel the discomfort of the dry air on the skin, just imagine what your baby’s sensitive skin must feel.

2. A winter humidifier is good for the eyes

A winter humidifier is good for the eyes

The eyes are the windows to the soul. However, most of the time, we disregard their needs when we are thinking of personal care and hygiene.

Unknown to many people, your eyes suffer a lot when you are experiencing dry air indoors, such as is bound to happen in winter.

If your eyes start feeling too dry, before you go to see an optician, check the humidity level in the house.

Normally, eyes should feel moist and fluid. Our surroundings help to make the eyes moisturized and comfortable.

Your eyes may also start feeling itchy and irritated. OK, these could also be symptoms of other eye infections, so you need to rule them out first. If you only experience these illness symptoms during the winter, well, you have dry air.

Get a humidifier for winter running so that you can inject some moisture into the room. That should help your skin and your eyes.

Also, check your lips. If they appear chapped, well, you may have to crank up the humidifier.

Dry air is bad for the lips. It sucks the moisture out of them, leaving them chapped and feeling dry all the time. They could develop painful cracks.

3. A good humidity level preserves your paintings, leather, and wood items

One of the telltale signs of low humidity indoors is cracking or peeling paint. However, this may not happen in the first, second, or even third winter seasons.

Unfortunately, by the time the paint starts to crack, it has been exposed to too much dry air. Do not let it get there!

You need to maintain the recommended humidity level for winter, which is 40 to 60 percent. If it is higher than that, it will cause mold growth. You do not want to start experiencing the symptoms of mold exposure in babies or even adults!

That should help you know exactly what the humidity is so that you can know when to turn your humidification appliance on.

Dry air also affects wood. If wood furniture, floors, and other items are exposed to dry air for too long, it sucks the moisture out of them.

And then your couch starts creaking when you sit down heavily. This could be an indication of either an aged couch that needs to be replaced or there is dry air in the house.

When exposed to dry air, the wood starts contracting, obviously from the loss of moisture. The joints start becoming loose.

This is just a prelude to worse things to come because the hitherto firm tables and chairs can start wobbling, thus posing a serious hazard to the users.

Wood floors also become loose and they start creaking when you are walking. However, if your floor is old, you should check it.

We all have a few to several leather items in the house. Dry air is not good for leather. It sucks even the natural moisture from them, causing cracking.

4. A humidifier can increase warmth in the house

If you need a humidifier for warmth at home, you should buy a warm mist humidifier. This one boils water and then releases moisture in the form of a fine warm mist.

However, to some extent, even a cool mist humidifier also enhances warmth in the room. You see when the heated air is humidified, you get a comfortable kind of dampness that lingers long in the air. This ultimately makes you feel more comfortable and warm.

When you have more humidity, your sweat will evaporate easily, leaving you warmer. This is also another of the reasons why we say that a humidifier can help increase warmth indoors.

5. There is less static

Static electricity is associated with dry air. It is quite annoying when you touch your dry hair and static electricity “shocks” you.

This static electricity is generally harmless when you experience it on dry clothes, hair, and skin. However, static electricity also affects electronics to such an extent that at times, it produces sparks.

If you are not careful with it, this could be the cause of a house fire, for example, when static electricity produces sparks close to the cooking gas.

Mostly, these are negligible problems, but you can never be too careful. It is best to buy a humidifier for increasing moisture in the air.

6. Control airborne viruses

The spread of viruses that cause different types of illnesses can be controlled with a humidifier.

For example, influenza is very common during the cold seasons because then, viruses move easily through the air thus affecting more people.

The reason why some viruses spread easily in winter is because they float in the air. Thus, when you increase the moisture in the air to about 50 percent, you make it hard for the viruses to float in the air.

They fall to the ground, thus ending up not being transmitted to others.

When you see too many cases of colds and flu in your family in the cold season, you just need to get the best humidifier for winter.

When the air is too dry, disease-causing agents spread faster, thus causing more suffering at home.

Note that some types of viruses and indoor allergens thrive in humid and warm conditions. That is why your air moisture content should never come to 60 or 70 percent.

7. A humidifier helps you sleep more comfortably

Nothing is worse than going to the office without having had enough sleep. This can affect your productivity at work.

If you have dry air in the house, you will not sleep comfortably. It also enhances snoring. Thus, if your partner or you are a snorer, you will experience more snoring during winter.

Snoring happens when you breathe through your mouth and the muscles at the back of your throat relax. When air passes over them, they vibrate, thus making a sound, which is snoring.

When you sleep in a room that is full of dry air, your breathing will be raspy. With a cool mist or warm mist humidifier, you will improve your sleeping conditions.

Your body is 70 percent or thereabouts made of water. This shows you just how much you need optimum moisture in the air.

You will help your nasal membranes, your lungs, and your airways in the breathing exercise.

8. It reduces allergic attacks

The jury is still out on this one, with some people saying that humidity does not help with allergies.

The truth is that optimum moisture in the air, you know, not too high not too low is perfect for health.

On the one hand, humidifiers can lead to the spread of dust mites. These notorious indoor allergens thrive when there is more humidity.

The modern humidifier can be set to keep the humidity at just the right setting so that the dust mites die instead of thriving.

Since most allergies affect the airways, hence the wheezing and breathlessness, well, when the air has moisture, it is quite soothing for the airways.

Some of the other indoor allergens to be wary of include pet dander, dust, fur, and many others. Any allergen is not good for your health.

Best types of humidifier for winter

Best types of humidifier for winter

Now that we have all agreed that we need a humidifier for winter, what is the best one?

We may classify them by category, but basically, any humidifier is better than no humidifier at all.

Here they are:

Whole house humidifier

This is not specifically a humidifier for the cold season, but it is for all time. It is installed together with the heating system.

What happens is that when your indoor air is heated, it is moistened such that it comes out warm and with the right level of moisture.

For installation, care, and maintenance, you will have to hire a professional in HVAC systems. Thankfully, this kind of humidifier is made for heavy-duty work so it does not fail that often.

The cold season is the main reason why you need a whole house humidifier installed in your heating system.

This is when you have to crank that radiator up for the heat and thus, the air is drier. Thus, if you have been having doubts about installing a whole-house humidifier, you need it!

The main benefit of having a furnace humidifier is that you humidify every room in the house, so you do not need to buy a small humidifier for each room.

Ultrasonic humidifier for winter

Ultrasonic humidifiers are good for winter. This kind of humidifier is designed to generate high-frequency vibrations, which in turn help from a fine mist from the water, which is then blown by a fan into the room.

Image of should I use a humidifier in the winter

The good thing is that these vibrations also kill germs, viruses, and bacteria. If you need a humidifier for sleeping, buy an ultrasonic one because it is silent when it is in operation. You will love it.

An ultrasonic humidifier releases a cool mist, which evaporates as soon as it is released into the air. The good thing is that it consumes minimal energy so you should barely notice any change in your bills.

Cool mist humidifier for winter

In many situations that need a humidifier, the cool mist one always emerges the winner. In this case, you will need this humidifier so that you can sleep better.

You may also need it for the baby’s nursery since you do not want any hazards in the room. The cool mist humidifiers are plug-and-play kinds of appliances.

These require some maintenance though as you have to keep the filters clean all the time. You may also need to change the filters at least once a year.

The reason for this is that the filters trap dirt, which in turn leads to the thriving of germs and bacteria, which can be blown into the air that you inhale.

Cool mist humidifiers are highly recommended for all types of weather. You can use them in summer, fall, or whenever. They are fuss-free, and they come in all sizes, shapes, and styles.

Just follow the humidifier setup instructions to make sure your Levoit humidifier is working correctly all the time.

Warm mist humidifiers for winter

At first glance, many people think that warm mist humidifiers for winter are good because they can inject some warmth into the air. That is alright, but there are many more benefits.

Image of should I use a humidifier in the winter

One of them is that in the process of boiling the water to produce the warm mist, any viruses and bacteria die.

This means that even when used in the baby nursery, you will not have to worry about the air being contaminated with viruses.

Just like the cool mist humidifiers, the warm mist humidifier for winter also needs some care and maintenance. The filters need to be cleaned and they may need to be replaced a couple of times a year.

You may also want to reconsider using this humidifier in the kids’ rooms because of the boiling water. If it is tipped over, it can cause a serious scalding hazard.

If you use it with hard water, you will have to clean the tank more often to remove the mineral deposits. You may also experience white dust on your furniture.

Should I Use a Humidifier in the Winter FAQ

You need to know a lot more information about how, when, and where to use a humidifier in winter. These frequently asked questions and their answers will help shed more light on this:

Any time of the year when it is cold enough to warrant turning on the heat causes a drop in your indoor humidity level.

The dry air from the furnace sucks the humidity out of your indoor air. If you do not turn on the humidifier at this time, you will start experiencing the symptoms of dry air.

Just because it is winter, that alone does not always require you to switch on the humidifier. Check the humidity level on the hygrometer and if it reads below 30 percent, switch on that Honeywell cool mist humidifier.

What setting should a humidifier be on in the winter?

Usually, most of the humidifiers that we have brought you here do not have built-in humidistats.

They just have a low, medium, and high mist output speed. Therefore, you need a hygrometer to be able to use it appropriately.

So, rather than talking about settings, since there is no way to enter the humidity level you want, if the air is too dry, run the high mist output.

Once the hygrometer reads the right humidity level, turn the mist output setting to low.

Generally, in winter, keep the indoor humidity level between 30 and 55 percent to avoid the symptoms of sleeping in a dry room.

Run the humidifier for 5 to 12 hours, and then switch it off.

Conclusion

Should I use a humidifier in the winter? You have seen just how important it is to get the best unit for the snow season. Now, just go out there and buy one, and make your cold season fun.

In the cold months, you need not beat up your airways with raspy dry air. With a humidifier for the cold season, it is so easy to bring the indoor humidity to the required level.