Perhaps it has never hit you that some of the devastating symptoms you and your family experience now and then stem from unregulated humidity levels in your home. But now you know better. Thus, it’s wise to look into your house’s humidity levels. Below are tips on keeping it at ideal levels, whether it’s summer or winter:

1. Purchase A Dehumidifier

A dehumidifier is a device that decreases and maintains a comfortable level of humidity in the air at your home. Fundamentally, a fan collects the indoor air and pulls it into the dehumidifier. While in there, the air comes into contact with cold coils, and moisture in it condenses. The moisture-free air is then warmed up and finally recirculated into the room.

It’s a valuable household appliance. Below are some of its benefits:

• It enhances your comfort inside the house, especially during the summer when humidity levels get to notoriously high levels.
• It helps prevent some health issues, such as allergies.
• For asthmatic people, it may help improve their breathing.
• Reducing indoor humidity may help eliminate pests that need moisture to survive. Examples include roaches, centipedes, bugs, silverfish, and earwigs.
• It’s an excellent way to fight mold infestation since mold thrives on damp surfaces. Ultimately, your walls and furniture will retain their original color and luster.

So, you’d want to shop for the right dehumidifier whose capacity matches your room size. Sites like https://humidityfixers.com/ and similar ones stock a huge range of premium quality humidifiers from trusted and renowned brands. They also have experienced personnel who can help you with the installation.

2. Dry Laundry Outdoors

Having wet laundry hanging in the house isn’t advisable, especially during a hot day, considering the moisture that may emanate from them. Therefore, you’d want to dry them outside and save your house from unnecessary dampness.

Aside from reducing indoor humidity, line drying is an excellent approach to saving the energy bills you’d have incurred if you used a clothes dryer. Additionally, sunlight is a natural bleaching and sanitizing agent, meaning your clothes will stay in a better condition than machine-dried ones. To this end, install a simple clothesline by fixing a nylon rope between two wooden posts. Ensure it’s in an open area and not heavily shaded by trees. You can also opt for ready-to-use clothes-drying racks, which you can freely move to where the sun shines at any given time.

3. Grow Indoor Plants

Some indoor plants can help lower the humidity levels. These include English Ivy, Parlor Palm, Boston fern, orchid, spider plant, air plant, cactus, and peace lily. Their leaves have stomata that absorb water vapor, which travels to the roots of the plants. The result is a low humid environment within your home. The good thing with most of these plants is that they need little sunlight to flourish, so they are perfect for the indoors. Some of them, like the spider plant, are also known to rid the indoor air of harmful pollutants.

In addition to reducing humidity, green plants improve your interior’s aesthetic appeal, especially if planted creatively. Your home’s value will also increase, and visitors are bound to appreciate your sense of style.

Here, Ivy plants are versatile, low-maintenance climbers known for their lush, trailing foliage, making them a popular choice for both indoor décor and outdoor landscaping.

4. Install Exhaust Fans

The bathroom and kitchen are well-known culprits for high humidity levels in the house. Cooking releases volumes of water vapor, and the same applies to hot water showering. If not directed to the outside, the released moisture can spread to the other rooms and raise the humidity levels.

Thus, you’d want to install exhaust fans in your bathrooms and kitchen or in any other room housing appliances that release water vapor. These mechanical ventilation devices replace the humid air with fresher zero-moisture air from the outside.

5. Replace Air Conditioners

Every appliance is bound to stop working efficiently at some point in time. Perhaps you’ve used your air conditioner (AC) for years, and it’s no longer efficient in regulating the humidity levels. At this point, it’s only wise to replace it with a new one instead of stretching it beyond its design limits. In the same sense, ensure your AC’s capacity matches your room size. Using a small one in a big room will only overwork it without achieving the desired temperature and humidity levels.

6. Fix Humidity Sensors

In your attempt to restore appropriate humidity levels in your home, it’s paramount to have a means of accurately measuring the amount of moisture in the indoor air. It is usually done using humidity sensors. A good one should indicate the current moisture levels, enabling you to take the appropriate corrective measures. But if it’s not reading the humidity levels correctly, you might not know when to act.

It doesn’t only apply to stand-alone humidity sensors but also the ones integrated into appliances like dehumidifiers. So, call a professional to check the condition of your humidity sensors. They’ll advise you on whether to keep them as they are, fix them, or replace them with new ones.

Conclusion

As a homeowner, comfort within the house is paramount. One aspect of the indoor air you must be concerned about is the humidity level. If it’s too low or too high, you may suffer several health issues as outlined above. Also, your house may get damaged through mold growth and structural failure of wooden elements.

To reduce the humidity levels, you can consider installing a dehumidifier, drying clothes outdoors, growing indoor plants, installing exhaust fans, replacing air conditioners, and fixing humidity sensors. While you can do most of these things on your own, it pays to ask for professional help with the more technical tasks. Ultimately, your home will have a conducive environment and offer the relaxing atmosphere you have always longed for.

In case you have any architectural, structural, and MEP design including fire sprinkler design requirements, or need an energy-efficient home design including structure, and HVAC design, feel free to contact us.  We provide you with the full permit set design + T24 for your request.

The post Humidity Levels-6 Tips To Keep Ideal Levels for Your Household appeared first on S3DA DESIGN Structural and MEP Design.

It’s one of the best treatment options for water with lots of bacteria and other microorganisms. UV purifiers are point-of-entry systems installed at the main water line in homes.

They (UV purifiers) only eliminate microorganisms, so they are often combined with other water filtration systems to provide clean water in homes.

In this article, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using UV water purifiers. But to understand their pros and cons, we’re also going to learn about how they work, their maintenance, and the kinds of contaminants they eliminate.

How Does UV Purification Work?

source: https://www.kloberz.com.my/catalog_category/23/Ultra-Violet-(UV)-Disinfection-System/

Ultraviolet radiation can kill bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi that may be present in your water. The purification system works by passing ultraviolet light of a particular wavelength through the water. The waves in this spectrum have a “germicidal frequency,” which effectively kills microorganisms.

UV lamps are used to pass the ultraviolet light through the water in the filter. The UV rays emitted damage the DNA of the microorganisms so that they cannot reproduce. The microorganisms also lose the ability to function, and this prevents them from spreading diseases through water. The treatment process eliminates up to 99.99% of the microorganisms found.

It’s advisable to use a pre-filter to remove sediments from your water before passing it through the UV purifier because some microorganisms may hide behind large dirt particles and escape the elimination process.

Contaminants That UV Water Purifiers Remove

UV disinfection can eliminate organisms such as:

• Salmonella
• Cryptosporidium
• coli
• Dysentery bacilli
• Streptococcus
• Mycobacterium tuberculosis
• Giardia
• Some viruses as well as fungi and algae.

Installation and Maintenance of UV Purifiers

Steps Before purchasing a UV water purifier

• Daily water usage: This will determine the size of purifiers to go for.
• Water quality: Your water should be free of sediments so that they don’t hinder the purifier from doing a thorough job.
• Space: UV systems will usually take a lot of space, especially if you combine them with other water filters. Make sure you have room to accommodate the system.
• Flow rates: The size of the UV purifier will affect the water flow rate in your home. Bigger sizes equal higher flow rates.
• UV dose: This refers to the amount of UV energy that the system will expose the water too. Usually, residential water purifiers are rated at 10 mJ/cm² or more. Higher doses are not necessary for a home water supply.
• UV transmittance (UVT): You’ll have to find out the UV transmittance of the water. UVT is a measure of the water’s ability to transmit UV light. If the UVT is less than 75%, you’ll need to pre-treat the water before using a UV purifier.

Steps After Installation of a UV Purification System

After installing your UV purification system, you’ll have to maintain it regularly. Although most systems will last for years, they still have to receive proper maintenance. Luckily, they’re quite easy to maintain, and parts like UV lamps or a UV ballast replacement are easy to find and procure online. Here are steps you can take to preserve them:

The installation of a UV purification system usually takes at least 2 hours. You can contact a reliable plumbing service to help you with the process.

1. Change the UV lamp after one year: UV lamps use mercury as fuel. The mercury starts to dissipate after some time. So, the lamp will need to be replaced. They usually last up to 375 days.
2. Clean the glass quartz sleeve: The UV lamp is usually enclosed in a glass quartz sleeve to protect it from water. You have to clean it regularly to make sure the lamp works effectively. The glass has to be clear enough for UV light to pass through. You can learn the step-by-step process of cleaning a UV filter on BOS.
3. You have to get a new quartz sleeve after using the UV purifier for two years.

Pros and Cons of UV water purification

Pros

1. UV water purification doesn’t require the use of chemicals, so it doesn’t leave by-products in the water.
2. The UV lamp only needs to be maintained once a year.
3. UV water purification is very useful during floods because it protects drinking water from contamination.
4. It destroys up to 99.99% of microorganisms found in the water. Especially bacteria and viruses.
5. UV water purification is an environmentally friendly method of disinfecting a water supply.
6. It’s safe to use at home since you don’t need to handle corrosive chemicals.
7. The purification process is relatively swift since water doesn’t need to be kept in a holding tank before passing into the home.
8. The process doesn’t require a lot of electricity.
9. The purification process doesn’t wastewater.
10. UV purification has one of the lowest operating costs compared to other disinfection methods.

Cons

1. A UV purification system only kills microorganisms. It doesn’t remove sediments, large contaminants, loose particles, or the remains of dead microorganisms from the water it purifies.
2. When you’re not running water, the UV lamp heats the water if it’s sitting stagnant in the chamber.
3. The purification system can only work if the water is clear and free of sediments.
4. The UV purifier does not work without electricity, e.g., during power outages.
5. It does not improve the taste or odor of water.

Overall, UV water purification is a very effective method of disinfecting water, and the pros seem to outweigh the cons. So, if you’re thinking of trying this method for water treatment, you’re on the right path.

We recommend combining a UV water purification system with other water filtration systems like reverse osmosis. This way, you get to enjoy clean, contaminant-free water in your home and greatly improve your health.

In case you have any architectural, structural, and MEP design including fire sprinkler design requirements, or need an energy-efficient home design including structure, and HVAC design, feel free to contact us.  We provide you with the full permit set design + T24 for your request.

The post UV Water Purification Pros and Cons appeared first on S3DA DESIGN Structural and MEP Design.