Monitoring my electric and gas bills now as an adult and I get it. It’s not too bad going from 65 to 68, but 65 to 90 would use up a lot of electricity in my case (and prior to my HVAC upgrade, uses gas which is cheaper but dries me out more). I’ll still let guests do it to some degree, but we’re talking a few dollars a day in the extreme. A month of my kid not touching my thermostat is equal to my kid getting a modestly priced video game.
Granted, I’m also the type to walk or bike a few miles instead of drive to avoid a few dollars in gas and maintenance costs. I’m not ecologically friendly, I’m just stingy.
No it’s not, there must be something else going on in your house and the person you responded to. Gas doesn’t dry the house any more than electric heating.
Winters are dry because the dew point is generally pretty low in the winter. Relative humidity is a function of air temp and dew point; the greater the difference, the higher the RH.
If you take cold air with a low dew point and heat it to a comfortable temperature you will always get a low RH as a result and the air doesn’t care how that happens.
Hot air stores more water inside itself, and cold air stores less.
As such, cold air that is completely full of water and can’t store any more is at 100% relative humidity, aka 100% saturation.
When that air warms up, it’s able to store more, and as such the relative humidity goes down, similar to getting a bigger bucket that has the same amount of water. It’s now less full.
Thing is, your body doesn’t care about how much water is actually in the air, it only cares about whether it can take/give water to the air. Hence relative humidity is the only thing that matters.
See I had never really thought the method of heating would matter, so that makes sense.
Now as to why this house feels so much more dry compared to the apartment, idk. Maybe the smaller apartment was more humidified from showers / dish washer / cooking than the larger house is.
Monitoring my electric and gas bills now as an adult and I get it. It’s not too bad going from 65 to 68, but 65 to 90 would use up a lot of electricity in my case (and prior to my HVAC upgrade, uses gas which is cheaper but dries me out more). I’ll still let guests do it to some degree, but we’re talking a few dollars a day in the extreme. A month of my kid not touching my thermostat is equal to my kid getting a modestly priced video game.
Granted, I’m also the type to walk or bike a few miles instead of drive to avoid a few dollars in gas and maintenance costs. I’m not ecologically friendly, I’m just stingy.
Dude holy crap is that why I’m so dry this winter? First winter in this house that’s gas heated… apartment was electric.
No it’s not, there must be something else going on in your house and the person you responded to. Gas doesn’t dry the house any more than electric heating.
Winters are dry because the dew point is generally pretty low in the winter. Relative humidity is a function of air temp and dew point; the greater the difference, the higher the RH.
If you take cold air with a low dew point and heat it to a comfortable temperature you will always get a low RH as a result and the air doesn’t care how that happens.
A little more eli5:
Hot air stores more water inside itself, and cold air stores less.
As such, cold air that is completely full of water and can’t store any more is at 100% relative humidity, aka 100% saturation.
When that air warms up, it’s able to store more, and as such the relative humidity goes down, similar to getting a bigger bucket that has the same amount of water. It’s now less full.
Thing is, your body doesn’t care about how much water is actually in the air, it only cares about whether it can take/give water to the air. Hence relative humidity is the only thing that matters.
Yeah I don’t think gas would be dryer, except it’s cheaper so we ran it more often. Now I wear sweaters instead, it’s less dry.
See I had never really thought the method of heating would matter, so that makes sense.
Now as to why this house feels so much more dry compared to the apartment, idk. Maybe the smaller apartment was more humidified from showers / dish washer / cooking than the larger house is.
Yeah that makes sense
Maybe with gas you heat to a higher temperature thus making air dryer