With the cold weather, comes dry weather.
Add moisture to warm dry indoor air
While we certainly want to keep warm during these cold Fall and Winter season months, our electric heaters and central home heating systems will take the moisture right out of the air.
For me, the dry air causes eye irritation and pain. The dry air can also cause problems such as dry cracking skin, dry hair with hair breakage, and respiratory issues.
There are several ways to help combat the dry air of the Fall and Winter seasons. That is by increasing the humidity level in your home.
Some remedies are to:
- Purchase a humidifier for your home. Electric humidifiers will pump a continuous mist of water into the air. Though they must be cleaned on a regular basis to keep bacteria from forming.
- Fill a spray bottle, with a mist nozzle, with clean water and then, holding the bottle high, spray into the air of the rooms in your home.
- Leave the bathroom door open after a shower to let the moisture-filled air spread to adjoining rooms.
- Fill a shallow dish with water and place it near heating vents. The heated air will help speed up the evaporation of the water.
- If you have a southern exposure you are in luck. Besides you sitting next to the window to get a good dose of needed Vitamin D, fill a shallow dish with water and place it on the sun-filled window ledge. The heat from the sun will heat up the air also causing faster evaporation of the water into the air.
- Open the dishwasher open after a completed dishwashing cycle. There will be a nice amount of steam to add to the moisture in the air.
- Instead of always using the dryer, hang damp laundry on a laundry rack inside a room. This will increase the humidity in the room as the items dry.
- Using the dryer can be beneficial because the dryer creates moist heat. Disconnect the dryer tube to the vent leading outside.
- Thoroughly clean the tube of lint or debris. Secure a piece of pantyhose over the end of the tube. Now when the dryer is used, the heat from the dryer will add moisture to the air. Any lint or debris will be trapped by the pantyhose. Continue to clean out the tube and pantyhose screen on a regular basis.
I learned years ago why Grandma would have that boiling pot of water on her gas stove during the Fall and Winter seasons. 
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