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0 pointsbuzzdenver3y ago0 comments

Where do you live? Winter is when people traditionally use humidifiers because the air inside tends to be dry. (Cold air outside has a low absolute humidity, so relative humidity will be low when you heat it up inside.)

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doublesocket3y ago

London. Cold enough that anything in an old Victorian building won't dry but warm enough that the air remains humid.

Broken_Hippo3y ago

I dunno about that - I live in Norway. Most folks dry their clothes inside for most of the year. They take a little longer to dry in the winter, but it really isn't an issue.

dagw3y ago

Having lived in both Norway and England, Norwegian houses are much warmer and drier indoors during the winter. Every house in England I lived in was damp, basically uninsulated and had terrible heating systems.

bluGill3y ago

London has an interesting climate - despite being fairly far north it doesn't get that cold in winter. It is common there to not have whole house heating. Norway isn't far London, but it is enough worse a climate that pretty much everyone has some form of central heating and keeps their house warm year round.

For this discussion is means that in London the indoor climate is livable, but terrible for trying clothes, while in Norway the indoor climate is nice and drying clothes indoors is helpful for adding humidity.

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dopidopHN3y ago

I lived for years in Paris. Dryer don’t exists there. You just don’t have space for one … Is the weather THAT different in London ?

mlindner3y ago

> I lived for years in Paris. Dryer don’t exists there. You just don’t have space for one … Is the weather THAT different in London ?

Do you not have space for a washing machine either? In many apartments in the US the dryer is stacked on top of the washing machine. It doesn't consume any additional space.

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Macha3y ago

Dublin is pretty similar culturally and climate-wise to London.

People use combo washer-dryers.

zarzavat3y ago

It’s worse if you live in a well insulated energy-efficient building. In winter it’s cold so nobody wants to open the windows. The lack of ventilation means that the moisture has nowhere to go and just accumulates.

roter3y ago

Shouldn't be if your building was designed properly, with a proper Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) e.g. [0]. The long and short of it, fresh air is slightly heated by stale outgoing moist air.

[0] https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-efficiency/products/product-i...

morsch3y ago

We're in central Europe. A few degrees colder than London in Winter, I doubt it matters. I've done it in houses built a hundred years ago (though they were modernized since, obviously) and ones that were build recently with high degrees of insulation (almost but not quite passive). Not an issue. I usually did open the windows for a couple of minutes.

mellavora3y ago

A lot of EU heats by steam/water radiators. These don't dry the air the same way forced air heating does.

You are right about absolute/relative humidity, but our basement feels damper in winter than summer.

sbradford263y ago

Forced air and radiators dry the air equally. Steam radiators sometimes can add humidity to the air it is limited and only when they are initially heating up before the valve closes. What causes dry air in the winter is the act of heating air up. Relative humidity is based on the temperature of the air, so if there is a fixed amount of water in the air, as you heat it the relative humidity goes down. So in the winter cold air slowly comes into the house via air leakage. This air is heated up which drops its relative humidity down. I have lived in houses with baseboard heat and with forced air, and recently converted my house from baseboard heat to forced air. There is no real difference in the relative humidity in the house.

Retric3y ago

Forced Air generally increase the exchange of new air from outside. Individual rooms will tend to be above or below ambient pressure which causes an exchange of air with the outside. Carefully balanced systems can minimize the effect, but homes are rarely built with this in mind.

You can get a related effect with thermostats which raise and lower the house’s temperature over the day as air expands with increased temperature.

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ihaveajob3y ago

The way I understand this at the gut, conversational level, is by noticing that hot air can carry more water, therefore it will dry your skin faster, which is what "feels" like the air being dry.

Heating doesn't remove water from the air, as you explained. But that's what people assume when they argue that "heating doesn't dry the air" as I've heard in the past. Using relative humidity is a good explanation.

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JackFr3y ago

Steam radiators absolutely dry out the air.

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung3y ago

Likely Laketown, near the Lonely Mountain.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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doublesocket3y ago

London. Cold enough that anything in an old Victorian building won't dry but warm enough that the air remains humid.

Broken_Hippo3y ago

I dunno about that - I live in Norway. Most folks dry their clothes inside for most of the year. They take a little longer to dry in the winter, but it really isn't an issue.

dagw3y ago

bluGill3y ago

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dopidopHN3y ago

I lived for years in Paris. Dryer don’t exists there. You just don’t have space for one … Is the weather THAT different in London ?

mlindner3y ago

> I lived for years in Paris. Dryer don’t exists there. You just don’t have space for one … Is the weather THAT different in London ?

Do you not have space for a washing machine either? In many apartments in the US the dryer is stacked on top of the washing machine. It doesn't consume any additional space.

2 more replies

Macha3y ago

Dublin is pretty similar culturally and climate-wise to London.

People use combo washer-dryers.

zarzavat3y ago

roter3y ago

Shouldn't be if your building was designed properly, with a proper Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) e.g. [0]. The long and short of it, fresh air is slightly heated by stale outgoing moist air.

[0] https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-efficiency/products/product-i...

morsch3y ago

mellavora3y ago

A lot of EU heats by steam/water radiators. These don't dry the air the same way forced air heating does.

You are right about absolute/relative humidity, but our basement feels damper in winter than summer.

sbradford263y ago

Retric3y ago

You can get a related effect with thermostats which raise and lower the house’s temperature over the day as air expands with increased temperature.

1 more reply

ihaveajob3y ago

The way I understand this at the gut, conversational level, is by noticing that hot air can carry more water, therefore it will dry your skin faster, which is what "feels" like the air being dry.

1 more reply

JackFr3y ago

Steam radiators absolutely dry out the air.

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung3y ago

Likely Laketown, near the Lonely Mountain.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse