When we speak with our customers about Trane’s Air Conditioner / Heating and Heat Pump product lines, we usually spend time educating them about how Humidity affects the way that they feel and sometimes look.  Keeping it simple, humidity is moisture in the air and it carries heat.

In the summer, humidity is high and even though the HVAC system is cooling, you feel muggy or even warm because of the humidity in the air.  The humidity carries the heat to your skin and gives you that uncomfortable feeling.  In a lot of cases, you just turn down the temperature to feel better.

In the winter, humidity is low and even though the heating system is running, there isn’t a lot of humidity in the air to carry the heat to your skin.  The thermostat may show the temperature to be at a level where you would expect to be warm, but you are not.  In most cases, you just turn up the temperature to feel better.  You may also notice that you have dry skin, splits in the skin of your fingers and nose bleeds.  This is usually being caused by not having enough moisture (humidity) in the air.

For those of us who have respiratory illnesses, we may sometimes have difficulty breathing due to too high or too low humidity.  High humidity in the summer supports the life cycle of mold spores, bacteria and viruses.  Low humidity in the winter dries out the linings of the nose, throat and lungs.  You can see then, that proper humidity may be important to a lot of people.

Fortunately, Trane has been working on ways to correct humidity for several years and there are HVAC products and accessories that we can install to help supply the right amount of humidity that most of us need.  The best time to do this is when you need to replace your HVAC system.

Increasing Humidity in the Winter:  There are really two methods to do this.  One is using a room vaporizer and the other is adding a humidifier to your HVAC system.  Vaporizers are inexpensive and do a decent job of adding moisture into a room.  The downside is that they usually only affect one room and do not keep the moisture level consistent in that room.  Trane Humidifiers are installed in your HVAC system and keep the humidity level consistent throughout the home.  They are adjustable, based on your needs and require minimal maintenance.

Reducing Humidity in the Summer:  There are really three methods to do this.  One is using a De Humidifier installed in your HVAC system.  While expensive, it will allow you total humidity control.  A second method utilizes a staged, variable speed fan motor in the HVAC system.  A third method utilizes a 2 stage or dual compressor outdoor condensing unit.  Let’s look at these methods and see how they can help you with this.

De Humidifier

This is a piece of equipment that only does one thing which is removing humidity.  It is fully adjustable and has minimal maintenance.

Staged Variable Speed Fan (Blower) Motor

Trane uses a software controlled Fan Motor which is located in the Trane furnace or air handler.  Using the patented Comfort-R software, the fan motor operates at different speeds during the cooling cycle to help the system remove humidity.  The Trane thermostat allows some adjustment of the cooling cycle to aid in the removal of humidity.

Two Stage Cooling or Dual Compressors:

Trane offers outdoor condensing units that have 2 Stage (2 speed) compressors or Dual Compressors.  When the outdoor temperatures are milder, a home that needs a 4 ton unit can be cooled with 2.5 tons, which has two benefits for the home owner.  When operating on the lower tonnage (lower speed) or on the smaller compressor, the cooling cycle is a little longer and this helps the system reduce the humidity.  The second benefit is reduced energy costs since it takes less electricity to operate less tonnage.

Trane’s XL16i

This model of the Trane outdoor condensing units has a 2 Stage compressor.  It is able to cool the home in milder temperatures on a lower “speed”.  This reduces humidity and the energy costs to operate it.  When needed, the compressor runs at maximum speed.

Trane’s XL20i

This is Trane’s Dual Compressor model and is the industry leader in performance and energy savings.  It uses 2 compressors and like the example above, a 4 ton system would have a 4 ton compressor and a 2.5 ton compressor.  In milder temperatures, the smaller compressor does the job at a much reduced energy cost, which also reduces humidity.  When needed, the large compressor runs to increase the cooling capacity.  Another benefit is that since only one compressor runs at a time, the life span of both compressors are much higher than a single compressor outdoor condensing unit.

With Trane, we can increase the humidity in the winter and reduce it in the summer.  This will makes you feel better and in many cases may improve your health.  Please call us and we will be happy to show you what we can do for you.