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How do I lower the humidity in my house enough to get the Arizona feel?

Ephraim Becker

Ephraim Becker

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
Someone told me that in Arizona, you can run around as much as you want and not get sweaty at all and you get nosebleeds very often because the humidity there is around 5 percent. I'm curious what it is like to live in Arizona so I want to lower the humidity in my house to 5 percent to get that feel. I tried as much as I can but the least the humidity is going down to is 54 percent. How do I get it to 5 percent?
 
Ephraim Becker said:
Someone told me that in Arizona, you can run around as much as you want and not get sweaty at all and you get nosebleeds very often because the humidity there is around 5 percent. I'm curious what it is like to live in Arizona so I want to lower the humidity in my house to 5 percent to get that feel. I tried as much as I can but the least the humidity is going down to is 54 percent. How do I get it to 5 percent?
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I doubt you can with much of any conventional indoor dehumidifier. I suspect just getting it down to 35% on the Eastern Seaboard might prove to be a stretch. But I'm no HVAC expert, just looking at what's online.

Though I can tell you that I was raised in uber-humid Virginia. And that it's nothing like living in the dry High Desert of Nevada. ;)

Between high temperature or high humidity, I'll take high temperatures almost any time. Though temps approaching 115 and higher can suck the life out of you as well.
 
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Ephraim Becker said:
Someone told me that in Arizona, you can run around as much as you want and not get sweaty at all and you get nosebleeds very often because the humidity there is around 5 percent. I'm curious what it is like to live in Arizona so I want to lower the humidity in my house to 5 percent to get that feel. I tried as much as I can but the least the humidity is going down to is 54 percent. How do I get it to 5 percent?
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I think that the main reason it gets down to 5% is that it is freaking hot. The best way to achieve this is to heat your house to about 110 and it'll probably dry out pretty good. Here in Vegas in my air conditioned house in the middle of summer it's around 30% indoors because the heat isn't baking off ambient moisture. The laundry I work in gets even more humid. We use swamp coolers to keep it cool. So, yeah, outdoors you don't feel sweaty because every bit of moisture on your body immediately evaporates off.
 
Judge said:
I doubt you can with much of any conventional indoor dehumidifier. I suspect just getting it down to 35% on the Eastern Seaboard might prove to be a stretch. But I'm no HVAC expert, just looking at what's online.

Though I can tell you that I was raised in uber-humid Virginia. And that it's nothing like living in the dry High Desert of Nevada. ;)

Between high temperature or high humidity, I'll take high temperatures almost any time. Though temps approaching 115 and higher can suck the life out of you as well.
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Yeah, high desert is nice, low humidity at a somewhat lower temperature. I agree about the heat, I live in Hawaii and when the Tradewinds stop blowing, it's hell. I'm OK up to about 110 here in Vegas.
 
Manuheleku said:
Yeah, high desert is nice, low humidity at a somewhat lower temperature. I agree about the heat, I live in Hawaii and when the Tradewinds stop blowing, it's hell. I'm OK up to about 110 here in Vegas.
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Hawaii- oh yeah, probably much like Guam. Not pretty when it came to temperature compounded by humidity.

Luckily it never seems to get quite that hot in Metropolitan Reno/Sparks. Oddly enough though it did most summers in the desert microclimate I lived in that was just east of Berkeley in the Bay Area.
 
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I have central air conditioning and heating. It won't be possible to have air conditioning and heating at the same time.
 
Sportster said:
It can be done, but you'd have to run your A/C and the furnace at the same time; and even then I don't know if you could get the humidity down to 5%. I worked for a place years ago that manufactured an artificial sweetener (name withheld on purpose). In order for the chemicals to blend correctly, they had to maintain the humidity at 20% or less. That was a challenge, because at the same time they had to maintain a specific temperature. They brought in an environmental engineer who figured out how to run the A/C and heat at the same time.

Frankly, I don't think it would be possible to lower the indoor humidity to 5%; it's also not healthy. The optimum level for comfort and health is about 45%.
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Sounds expensive. I'd think a round trip to Phoenix in the summer would be immensely cheaper.
 
A round trip to anywhere just for that will never happen. We got central air conditioning when we rebuilt the house around 2 years ago. My father is spending enough money on the electricity bills. He spent double than last year's because I keep on lowering the air conditioner down to 68 degrees.
 
The humidity now reads 50 percent in my house. It never went that low before. By the way, when I say my house, I mean my parent's house because I'm still living with my parents. I have 5 siblings. Me and my little brother sleep in one wing of the house floor and sleep in different rooms. My sisters sleep in the opposite wing of the house floor, sleeping in 3 different rooms and my parents sleep in the master bedroom, which is in between the 2 wings of the house floor.
 
Ephraim Becker said:
I just read the Wikipedia and it didn't say anything about bringing Arizona to New York.
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I was only being figurative, Ephraim. Something not to be taken literally.

The point I tried to make is that you must actually travel a great distance to experience such a profound lack of humidity. Not something you're going to be capable of recreating in the comfort of your New York home or much of anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard.

Hopefully at some point in your life you will get to travel to see that our nation is amazingly varied- and in so many ways. ;)
 
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Interesting question Ephraim, not one I've come across before. I live in canada, in the more northerly area. In winter, once the temperature has dropped below -10F the heating is on most of the time.
It becomes extremely dry inside, after a few months. Humidity levels can reach about 10% and sometimes lower, so in a way it becomes like a desert inside the house.

I fix that, by using a humidifier constantly, which will sometimes go through two pails of water per day in February. And I do get bloody noses, and perspiration evaporates easily. So I suppose if I didn't use a humidifier, it could feasibly become like the Arizona desert.
 
People in Vegas compare driving in the summer with the window down is pretty much the same as blowing a hair dryer in your face. Not whole body, but that's pretty much the feeling.
 
I wanted to experience 5% humidity at 68 degree temperature. I thought humidifiers lower the humidity. Looks like i'm wrong.
 
Manuheleku said:
People in Vegas compare driving in the summer with the window down is pretty much the same as blowing a hair dryer in your face. Not whole body, but that's pretty much the feeling.
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LOL. Yup...driving with the windows down. Interesting concept! No thanks. :eek:

I drive with the moonroof open on occasion, and then there's air conditioning to consider.

But the windows stay up. And I'm really enjoying the tinted windows. :cool:
 
Ephraim Becker said:
I wanted to experience 5% humidity at 68 degree temperature. I thought humidifiers lower the humidity. Looks like i'm wrong.
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That level of environmental control takes a very expensive industrial HVAC system. It is not a natural occurrence to have that low of humidity at that temperature. It is unlikely to impossible to achieve that level of temperature and humidity with consumer appliances. And you need a DE-humidifier to lower humidity.
 
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