Our Best Whole-House Humidifiers and Dehumidifiers
Discover how our best home humidifiers and best dehumidifiers for your home can help increase your comfort and improve indoor air quality (IAQ).
By Anne Fonda
Low humidity and high humidity can both cause discomfort and even damage your home and belongings. But there’s an easy fix – optimize your home’s humidity levels.
Best indoor humidity levels for comfort
What is the ideal indoor humidity? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends an indoor humidity level between 30-50% for a comfortable home. Humidity should never be allowed to rise above 60%.
Signs of low humidity
Depending on where you live, you may only see the signs of low humidity in the winter, when humidity levels naturally drop as the temperatures drop. If you live in a dry climate, you may have low humidity year-round.
Some of the signs of low humidity in your home can include:
- Dry skin
- Dry or cracked lips
- Dry eyes
- Dry sinuses
- Nosebleeds
- Itchy throat
- Dry, cracking wood (floorboards, furniture, window frames)
- Frequent zaps from static electricity
Signs of high humidity
Anything over 60% humidity is considered high humidity. Some of the signs of high humidity in your home can appear before the humidity reaches that level and can include:
- Clammy, sticky feeling
- Doors and windows that stick
- Peeling paint
- Increased allergy and asthma symptoms
- Musty odors
- Mold and mildew growth
- Rotting wood
- Increase in dust mites
- Increase in moisture pests
Whether you have high humidity or low humidity in your home, we can help.
Achieving humidity control with whole-house solutions
Humidifier vs dehumidifier: what’s the difference? Simply put, a humidifier adds moisture to the air and raises humidity. On the other hand, a dehumidifier removes moisture from the air and lowers the humidity.
We specialize in whole-house comfort solutions. So, if you’re looking for the best bedroom humidifier or the best humidifier for your baby, you may need a portable humidifier. You may want to be specific in your Google search.
However, we would argue that if one bedroom or a nursery needs a humidifier, your whole house needs a humidifier. So, the best humidifier for your bedroom and your children’s bedrooms may be the same – a whole-house humidifier.
For those of you who live in humid climates, a whole-house dehumidifier will help ensure everyone’s comfort – not just people in the basement or living room. Whole-house dehumidifiers are connected to the water supply, so they fill themselves and the water evaporates into the air or is released as steam. That means there’s no need for you to fill a reservoir or empty buckets or basins.
Humidifier benefits
Using a humidifier has a lot of benefits. While a portable unit can help one room, a whole-house humidifier increases the humidity in the whole house, so everyone wins. Benefits of balanced humidity include:
- Healthier skin and lips
- Better moisture for your eyes and nose
- Fewer (or no) nosebleeds
- No damage to wood
- Less static electricity
Dehumidifier benefits
While a dehumidifier can help decrease the humidity in your home or basement, it’s important to get to the root cause of the high humidity. If it’s water infiltration in your basement, you need to resolve that issue.
If you live in a humid climate and the whole house has high humidity, you’ll want to find the best dehumidifier for a house.
Benefits of a whole-house dehumidifier can include:
- Decreased moisture in the air restores comfort
- Doors and windows open and close with ease
- Reduced allergy and asthma symptoms
- No musty odors
- No new mold and mildew growth after cleanup/remediation
- No more rotting wood after removal of damaged wood
- Decrease/eradication of moisture pests with pest control
Why choose an American Standard humidifier or dehumidifier
At American Standard, we build everything to a higher standard, and that includes our humidity control solutions. You deserve the most well-engineered comfort solutions, and that’s what we deliver. Work with your local American Standard dealer to achieve ideal indoor humidity, year-round.
Our best whole-home humidifiers
We have several whole-house humidifiers to choose from. But the best of the best are in our Platinum series.
Platinum humidifier
The Platinum Humidifier is a fan-powered evaporative humidifier. This type of home humidifier is also known as a furnace humidifier. That’s because it attaches to your furnace.
Features include:
- Flow-through design
- Built-in fan
- Durable, rust-resistant housing
- Replaceable humidifier pad
- Bypass damper
- Controlled moisture distribution
- Automatic control
- Optional outdoor sensor
- Up to 18-gallon evaporative capacity
- Suited for homes up to 4,200 sq. ft.
- Five-year base/ten-year registered limited warranty on functional parts with registration
Platinum steam humidifier
The platinum steam humidifier may be the best house humidifier if you live in an arid climate with low humidity year-round. That’s because it operates independently of your heating and cooling system.
Features include:
- Operates independently of the HVAC system
- Humidity on demand
- Electrode steam canister
- Works with existing ductwork or can be remotely mounted
- Varying capacity from 11.5 gallons per day to 34.6 gallons per day
- Suitable for small to large homes up to 5,000 sq. ft.
- Automatic shutoff - after 72 hours of inactivity, the unit will drain to prevent standing water
- Five-year base/ten-year registered limited warranty on functional parts with registration
Our best whole-house dehumidifier
Our whole-home dehumidifier with optional ventilation gets high marks for getting rid of the damp, sticky feeling that can come with high humidity. By reducing the humidity, you feel more comfortable, and you can keep your home safe from mold and mildew.
Features include:
- Optional ventilation
- MERV 13 filter included for improved IAQ
- Suitable for homes up to 3,000 sq. ft.
- Removes up to 15 gallons of water/moisture from the air each day
- Works with existing ductwork or can be remotely mounted
- Compact design for installation in tight spaces
- Five-year base/ten-year registered limited warranty on functional parts with registration
This whole-home dehumidifier pairs well with a single-stage air conditioning unit that can struggle to adequately dehumidify in the summer. It is also suitable for high-performance homes with foam insulation. The dehumidifier draws moisture out of the air until the desired humidity level is reached, and then shuts off.
Contact the indoor air quality experts
You can have the optimal temperature set in your home and still not feel comfortable if the humidity is too high or too low. If you’re tired of feeling cold and clammy in the summer or hate the dry skin and static electricity in winter, there’s a solution.
Reach out today to your American Standard dealer to see what humidity control options you have to make your whole house feel better. After an air quality evaluation and talking with you about your home and your family’s needs, they’ll make product recommendations and schedule professional installation to help you achieve a higher level of comfort.
Anne Fonda, Content Writer
A Content Writer with Trane Technologies, Anne Fonda researches topics and writes for Trane® and associated residential HVAC brands. She works in collaboration with Trane Technologies subject matter experts, offering easy-to-understand, informative content on complex topics. Her goal is to help consumers make informed decisions on the products and services they need.
She has written for HVAC and other service provider websites for over 16 years. Before transitioning to web content writing, Anne had a 14-year stint as an award-winning journalist. She graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism.
When she’s not working, Anne enjoys playing word games, reading, gardening, spending time with family, and visiting gardens and museums.
Expert review by Sean Goddard, Product Manager, Coils & Indoor Air Quality
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