Can your humidifier damage your electronics? It’s time to discover the truth. Here’s a quick answer to the age-old question.
Humidifiers make our lives easier, and provide us with a myriad of wonderful benefits. However, are they safe enough to be used near our precious electronics?
Whether you own an 80-inch TV, or the latest gaming console, there’s no denying that keeping your beloved possessions from malfunctioning, is among your top priorities.
And It makes total sense. After all, it’s not like they’re awfully cheap!
Now, let me assure you that, in most scenarios, using your dehumidifier next to your electronics is safe. In fact, your appliance can sometimes even keep them from sustaining damage.
How? Let’s find out together!
What’s the Ideal Household Humidity Percentage?
Staying within ideal ranges is crucial
You’ve probably heard about this somewhere else, but in case you haven’t, the ideal humidity percentage for households is between 30 and 50%. The 20% wiggle room between the lower and upper limit is due to varying climate conditions in people’s homes.
A house in Phoenix, Arizona will have much lower natural humidity percentages, than one in Bradford, England, for example.
Making sure to keep your home within this range will keep your electronics safe, and provide you with wonderful health benefits.
If you notice that you have excessively high humidity percentages, you can always buy a dehumidifier to counteract this, and lower your humidifier’s settings.
How Far Should Your Humidifier Be From Your Electronics?
Adequate distance can help prevent damage
Just happens with many things in life, there’s no general rule for this. In theory, any distance should be safe; however, let’s remember that, after all, your humidifier’s mist is condensed water.
Using it, at least 1 meter away from any of your electronics, is not a terrible idea. Again, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t use it any closer, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, right?
If you wanted to test this more accurately, you could look a little closer at the areas immediately around your humidifier to see if there’s excess water collecting in them. Most models should disperse this humidity in the air, not create pools around themselves.
If yours does the latter, you might want to increase the distance between it, and your devices even further.
How Can Low Humidity Affect Your Devices?
Static is any electronic’s nightmare
All this time you’ve been worrying about how excessive humidity from your appliance could damage your electronics. But have you ever thought about what low humidity could do to them?
I doubt it, and I don’t blame you! It’s a little known fact.
I’m sure you’ve heard that extremely low humidity levels inside a home can cause a lot of health problems, such as nosebleeds, allergies, and dry eyes. And while that obviously won’t affect your electronics, static will.
I won’t bore you with the technical details, but low humidity environments are the perfect place for static to form, which can create a lot of issues. From minor circuitry damage, to fried circuit boards, and total loses. Static is truly something you don’t want to mess with.
So, am I telling you that your humidifier is not only not dangerous to your devices, but could also protect them? Absolutely.
As stated above, if you live in an area where the climate is always very dry, there’s a very good chance that your humidity percentage is well below 30%. In that case, owning a humidifier will improve your health, and greatly decrease the risk of static in your electronics.
Great news, huh?
Is Humidity Always Safe?
How much is too much?
Okay, I’ve been talking about all the wonderful benefits of adequate humidity in your home, but how much is too much?
Well, there’s no single answer to this question, but in general, anything above 50% percent humidity, is not ideal. When the humidity in your home exceeds this upper limit, your electronics could sustain moisture damage, and short circuit.
Moreover, this is not only dangerous to your devices, but also to your drywall and upholstery. Excessive humidity inside your home can create damp, and mold, both of which are expensive to remove.
If you’re highly concerned about the humidity percentages in your living spaces, it’s not a bad idea to get a moisture meter, and monitor them constantly.
Conclusion
Fearing your humidifier might damage your electronics is logical. After all, these are expensive, and highly sensitive to moisture.
That being said, I hope this piece has helped clarify that, in most scenarios, there’s nothing to worry about, and using your appliance near your devices is perfectly safe.
More often than not, making sure to constantly monitor your humidity percentages, and avoiding placing your appliance right next to your electronics, should keep everything working great.
Thank you for reading. If this article answered your questions, we have many more useful resources you can check out below. Why not keep learning?
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