House Humidity Woes

I know that humidity is usually lower in colder temps and a sign of low humidity is being shocked by static electricity. However, I didn't know that low humidity can have some major negative effects on my house. Yep, that's right. Low humidity not only dries out skin and sinuses, it does the same to houses. It can cause trim and hardwood flooring to shrink and the joints open; cracks in drywall can develop; and joints in wood furniture can become loose. Yikes, that's serious!

After a quick google search, I found out that a relative humidity of about 45% is ideal. To test the humidity in our house, the hubby used an inexpensive hygrometer which can be purchased at either Wal-Mart or Target . After a few minutes, we found that the humidity in our house is 29%!!

That is way too low. No wonder I've been shocking everything in sight, the dogs included. I haven't noticed any damage to the house or cracks in the drywall, but I don't want to take any chances. The only way to fix this problem is to add water into the air and the easiest way is with a humidifier. We went to the Walgreens down the street from our house and bought two $20 humidifiers. We set one up in the bedroom and one in the Man Cave and were almost excited to see what the humidity would be the next morning. (Is it sad to be excited over the humidity in your house?) Flash forward to morning and we check the hygrometer and guess what...the humidity is even lower?! What? Huh? We knew there was no visible mist coming from the humidifiers, but they made noise so we assumed they were working . Well, obviously they weren't. So we got on the Internet to see what might be the problem and found out that the two humidifiers we bought have a terrible rating and horrible reviews. Everyone complained about them not working. Wow - who knew that you should research humidifiers before buying?! Lesson learned. But the good news is that we found a well rated / reviewed humidifier and quickly purchased it from Target. Enter our new humidifier:

It is really quiet and super cute, which is a plus. We plugged in this little penguin-humidifier and it immediately started spitting mist. Hallelujah, hopefully the humidity will be in the ideal range pronto - at least we could see the mist this time. And after a day of the penguin-humidifier doing its job, the humidity in the house rose to 46%.

Woo hoo! Us and the little penguin-humidifier saved the house, actually the penguin did all the work. And I have already noticed that my skin doesn't feel as dry and my fingers aren't near as shocking as they were.

Do you have house humidity problems? Is a humidifier a permanent fixture in your house? Or is your house humidity perfect and you don't have to worry about this?