Dehumidifier Magic!

[Macca]

51 is very low.

[struth]

51 is very low.

was 65 a few weeks ago.. yup heating is kicing in now as temps drop, so air gets drier. i have to add water, where you take it away.

50 is bang on tbh... lower than 40 and static becomes an issue

[Macca]

I've no central heating and my house much older than yours. Don't think I could ever get it down to 40!

[Jimbo]

40, your not far off the sahara!

[Macca]

lol that's what I thought.

[struth]

goes down to 30 here sometimes in winter with heating on... air is so dry it burns yir nose lining. But its a lot colder here in general so heating can be on all the time. was much better with the coal fire which i miss

[dave2010]

humidity is 51 here.. not had my humidifier on of late as its been humid enough. but with winter onsetting they will be on a lot more

51 is OK. One of my meters is showing that today. In the bathrooms currently the meters are 60+, but that's to be expected if people will have showers. For preference I'd like to see values between 45 and 55 - ideally at the low end, but with British weather that's not always possible. If the weather forecast is showing high humidity, then it's a real struggle to get it significantly lower indoors. Look at the BBC Weather app and check the humidity at different times of day.

For example, currently

London - 16:00 48%, 18:00 50%, 20:00 57%, 22:00 63%

Glasgow - 16:00 51%, 18:00 57%, 20:00 68%, 22:00 79%

I used to live in Fresno (CA). Currently showing -

10:00 42%, 12:00 34%, 14:00 27%, 16:00 22%

Nice and warm there - and the low humidity was great. Coming back to the UK was a horrible shock - though it took a while to get used to the very high temperatures there in the summer.

[Pharos]

"Coming back to the UK was a horrible shock "

I bet the humidity was not the only shock.

[Jimbo]

Dehumidified house today and managed to get to 55% humidity. Turned the system on and again it sounds exceptionally good tonight. No static whatsoever from my vinyl. Clarity and soundstage definitely up a notch, at least to a point where it is noticeably better so something beneficial is going on..

[Sherwood]

I am somewhat perplexed by this thread and my own experience runs contrary to that of many of the posts here. My reason for this is that I spent the period 1998 to 2005 living first in Namibia, and then in Bangladesh. For those unfamiliar with these countries, they represent polar extremes in terms of humidity. There are some parts of Namibia where no rain falls at all for many years. Even though the temperature may get into the 40's during the day, no matter how much energy one expends, one never gets sweaty because the moisture evaporates immediately. In fact, the absence of moisture content and the lack of cloud cover at night means that it often drops below freezing after a day of intense heat. In contrast, Bangladesh is extremely humid, especially during the monsoon season. I still recall my mornings when after a shower I would put on a fresh cotton shirt and cotton chinos, and be absolutely drenched with perspiration in the time it took me to get from my air conditioned home to my air conditioned car.

I mention this because I used the same hifi system in both countries and never really noticed any significant difference in performance between the two locations, and I listened to a lot of music in that time. My listening room in both settings was very large with tiled floors and high ceilings, although the Bangladesh lounge was squarer in layout. There were some factors that did affect the sound, most obviously variations in mains quality. At some times the drop in voltage was so great that the television picture would shrink and light bulbs would dim noticeably. What I did find to influence the sound was the operation of several air ionisers around the house. The effect of these was visible as well as audible since after a few days one would have to clear up a pile of "dust" in front of the ioniser units. These particles were particularly worrying in Bangladesh as they were mainly exhaust particles from pollution whereas in Namibia they were just desert dust!

I accept that in Bangladesh, the air-conditioning will have reduced the humidity a little, but the levels were still much greater than one would experience at any time in the UK. In Namibia, my house did not have air-conditioning in the lounge, only in the bedrooms.

Whilst forum members may detect a difference in perceived sound, I suspect that this may be related to feeling more comfortable in a location with less humidity when the temperature is high. I also suspect that my ioniser had a similar effect as it is known that negative ions can create a sense of well being. Candles and waterfalls are both ion generators, and that might explain why we feel good around them. The benefits of negative ions are usefully summarised here https://negativeionizers.net/negative-ions-benefits/ .

I would be interested if the same effects were reported when the dehumidifier were used in winter. I suspect not, not least because so many homes lack natural ventilation and central heating systems dry out the air normally. In fact, I often find myself increasing humidity in winter by putting a wet tea towel on the radiator, even though I keep windows open to let fresh (moister) air into the house.

Of course, these are my personal experiences, but they are based upon extreme humidity environments.