BeerBorg

Okay my new environs are driving me crazy, hope some of you can help.

Since we have been in the new rental house here in Roanoke there is horrible static electricity and it is very annoying.

Is it because the air in the winter is so dry??? I don't remember having this problem in any other house I've lived in before.

We were looking at humidifiers on the web but it seems like the room were you put it would be "wet" while it tried to humidify the whole house.

Anyone have/solved this problem?

And is it just a winter issue? I understand that the summers can get hot and humid here.

My house has a humidifying device connected to the central furnace. It has a summer and winter auto setting and a manual control. That way it avoids the "wet room" issue you mention.

*if* I forget to set it to winter mode in the winter then I will get nasty static electricity.

You might want to just poke around in your basement or wherever the furnace is and see if there is some kind of summer/winter switch for a built in humidifier device.

Or ask the landlord if they can install one, I do not think they are very expensive.

Yup...pretty much a winter issue. But the system that Mashani is talking about is the best to do. If I could figure out a way to harness that static electricity in the winter, I could power a couple of the lights in the house.

If equipped it will be located on the side of the air box above the burners, have a water line running to it and have ductwork looping right back into the air box. Set at about 35% should have a lever for winter or summer that opens or closes the baffle in the looped duct, open for winter closed for summer.

All good info. Yes, you can buy small humidifiers, at most they will do a room. You'd need them throughout the house if the whole house is an issue. Central humidifiers often have pads that need changing at least 1x per season, and as noted have a winter/summer setting - summer is off and the air goes around the humidifier, winter it goes through it.

In the summer your central air will keep the house dehumidified. If you have a basement, it often might be cold and clamy and you may need a dehumidifier, which sits and runs a mini airconditioner that runs air over coils and collects the water from it, stops things from molding or getting rusty in the basement. We had one at one house, had not used it in many years, sold it a while ago.

Stovetop brewing will humidify the house. Repeat as necessary.

Thank you so much everyone for responding. I will ask the landlord if there is one in the house and if they can come check it/show me how it works.

I feel better just reading your replies and knowing "it wasn't just me" ( I had feathers flying up from a pillow and grabbing onto my eye glasses when changing bedding ).

I'm also glad I posted the question because it will now be on our must have list for the perm. home when we find it.

I LOVE THE BORG

Just another thing to consider is dryer sheets if you don't already use them. I don't use them during the summer but during the winter it seems to cut down on the static on your clothes/sheets/blankets and can make a big difference in how much static you deal with in a day. It won't humidify the whole house but for me it changes it from being zapped all day long and dealing with clingy clothes to maybe a couple of zaps a day.

I have a central unit. If you have central heating (not baseboard or radiator) a portable room unit should work fine assuming you have cold air returns. It may take a bit to get circulated through the house, but once it does is should stabilize for the most part.

@Duff that's what I thought as well. Maybe the dryer sheets I have are crap but I still got a lot of static.

Thanks Yooper, the returns are in the ceiling, if there isn't a whole house unit here (the place had been vacant for over a year so I need to check) I'll look at the smaller units again.

The room units seem to be high maintenance from what BB2 found so far but I'll take the trade off since it is only a few months each year.

Some are worse than others. The older styles tend to be basically a big bucket with a drum that turns that a fan blows on. The drum paper/foam needs to be changed every once in awhile and you have to keep it treated to avoid bacteria and/or mold growing. The one my parents have is more of a mister and they simply add more water to the tank when it starts getting low. Very low maintenance.

I'd also point out that a small humidifier is meant for a room, not more. Ultrasonic humidifiers can't be on 24/7, they'll fail (ask me how I know). Room humidifiers are good IF you keep the room door closed, i.e. for a bedroom when someone has a cold. Note that some humidifiers / vaporizers may leave a white dust on everything as the minerals settle out of the mist.

You can be larger humidifiers,like this, that you fill up with buckets or a faucet / hose adapter. Depending on the dryness and your desired humidity level, they can last a few days. Yes, as DaYooper mentioned, you need to clean them and replace the belts but that's true of any room or console humidifier.

Humidifiers can be mounted right into the central system as was noted. You go down to the systems and look for a water line connecting to the ductwork somewhere. They can be a drum system (you replace the drum each year), a pad system (same thing on replacement) or a nozzle system that just sprays a mist into the heated air as it passes by (as DaYooper noted). Any of these can be added to a central system, and they are not very expensive, BUT they need to be installed either into or onto the ductwork, patched into the water line AND wired for power so they run only when the heat runs. Here's an example: http://amzn.to/1LQvPTO. Figure $300 - $400 for a plumber to supply one and install it.

"Figure $300 - $400 for a plumber to supply one and install it."

So I'm thinking maybe I'll suspend some tupperware containers from all the ceiling vents and put some distilled water in them.

We keep a water dragon on the wood stove all the time it really helps. Another reason why I brewed so much in the winter

Brewbirds wrote:"Figure $300 - $400 for a plumber to supply one and install it."

So I'm thinking maybe I'll suspend some tupperware containers from all the ceiling vents and put some distilled water in them.

Ive seen some of the gadgets you guys have made (ie bottle washer on steroids) and ya seem to be handy, so may not be a problem to install. Use a quick tap to tap an existing water line and a hole in the outgoing ductwork (do not want it on the feed side as it will get the stuffs in the furnace rusty), tap in to the blower for the power and voila! When I bought my first house before a functional internet and when I was young and stupid I simply let it run continuously (it was a drum unit, cant do that with a spray unit). My thoughts were: 1) I was lazy, 2) I had no clue what I was doing as was also young, 3) power drain was minimal as the furnace in the winter runs a decent chunk anyway, and 4) it wouldnt hurt anything other than a buck or two additional on my power bill.