Tips needed for an overly dry house

[ericamanda01]

The air in our house has been so dry. The past week I have had the worst headache from it. I had the tea pot on and it built up enough humidity for a little while, but I can't have that on all day. Does anyone have any tips to keep the moisture in the air?

 

[DisMN]

We have radiators so I always keep a few pans of water on them which really helps the humidity. Last year however I filled twice as many pans and never let them dry out...and BOY did that make a big difference. Never ONCE did we have static electricity attack us! VERY unusual for that to happen. I've already filled my pans for this winter.

Good luck!

 

[dejr_8]

Humidifiers.

 

[golfgal]

Humidifiers.

I would say pretty much everyone I know in the north, i.e. dry air in the winter states, has one of these. Just make sure you get one large enough for your house or it won't do any good.

 

[pilotwife_02]

Growing up I remember my mom always having a pot on the stove. Can you buy some humidifiers?

When we built our house we had them install a humidifier directly on the heater for this very reason. I hate how dry the air is in the winter. I love being able to control the humidity in the house directly on the thermostat.

I know that Vicks has some simple humidifiers that simply run all the time, I don't think they are that expensive, $20. I used them in my son's room when he was a baby before we moved.

 

[Flight]

Cool mist portable humidifier. If you live in a two level home, buy one for each level.

You can get them almost anywhere- Walmart, Target, Lowes, Home Depot, and many of the large drugstore chains.

 

[tzolkin]

We have humidifiers that we often run at night.

We have a coal stove, so we keep a pot of water on it all the time.

You could also try hanging some clothes to dry. Maybe towels and then just put them in the dryer at the end to fluff them up? This would save energy from running both the dryer and humidifier. I hang clothes in our guest room because I can't stand the clutter of looking at them.

 

[princess momma]

We had Aprilaire installed last year, but before that we had to have humidifiers all over the house. I also skipped the drying cycle on the dishwasher and opened it up to let the steam out. When we showered we'd leave the bathroom door open. I love the Aprilaire. We were waking up with dry throats and my daughter had frequent bloody noses. We've had no problems yet this year.

 

[clovergirl5]

We run a humidifier everyday/night in the winter. We have one that covers a large sq. footage. It does really good. I want to say it holds at least a gallon of water, maybe more I can't remember what the box said. We got it last year. Hunter humidifier care free plus model from Lowe's. We like the ones that you don't need to replace the filter due to the hard water we have. Between minerals and salt/calcium build up from the water softener, the filters get icky fast. We go through 2 plus fillups/day. Thats a lot of moisture being put into the air. We heat our home with an outdoor woodstove though and the heat is extremely dry. It has a % setting to measure the humidity in the room. The humidifier only kicks on and runs when it falls below your set humidity % level.

 

[C.Ann]

I would say pretty much everyone I know in the north, i.e. dry air in the winter states, has one of these. Just make sure you get one large enough for your house or it won't do any good.

Definitely.. Sometime in the future my Dson-in-law is hoping to install one that hooks right in with the heat and central a/c system.. For now I have a cool mist humidifier I use in my bedroom (the hottest room in the house - even with the heat shut off) and I have to keep one of my windows open a crack all winter.. When we first moved here I thought I'd die in this room!! Headaches; scratchy, dry throat that would wake me up all night - it was awful! The cool mist humidifier and no heat in my room works great!

 

[Mrs.Toad]

We have a whole house humidifier. Whenever the heat's on, the humidifier is on.

It made a big difference.

 

[dis-happy]

In our house we all sleep under down comforters and keep the heat turned off at night. I can't stand to have the heat on at night as it does dry out the air so much and everyone gets sick more often. Seems to help.

 

[DMickey28]

We have humidifiers in our bedrooms as well and I am thinking of putting one or two downstairs as well.

 

[malibuconlee]

If your vents are on the floor you can try putting a metal bowl of water (or a kitchen pot) on top of the vent. My mom did that when we were kids. It does help.