12 Cunning Tricks of Humidifying a Room Naturally

Have you ever asked yourself how to humidify a room naturally? Keeping your house humid is very important if you want to avoid a scratchy throat, itchy eyes, bloody noses, ashy skin, and chapped lips. During the summer, the air is humid and the air conditioning helps keep things cool. However, as winter begins and intensifies, the air gets colder and drier, making it more and more difficult to keep your home humid enough to avoid these bothersome maladies. Depending on the size of your house or your budget, buying one or two good quality humidifiers for your home is a wise idea. But that doesn’t mean that you’d not be able to enjoy the health benefits of a humidifier just because you can’t afford it. Luckily there are a lot of ways to humidify your house easily and cheaply, without the need for an expensive humidifier and an expensive electricity bill.

How do you know that your indoor air is dry?

First of all, you should check to see if you even need to humidify your room in the first place. Dry air may not be easy to detect if this is the first time you are paying attention to it, but detecting the symptoms that come with it is definitely a trivial matter. If you have a constantly runny nose or a dry throat, sinus congestions, and dry and itchy skin then it may be a good idea to see what you can do about safely and economically increasing the humidity in your living space.

12 ways to humidify a room naturally without a humidifier

Here are 12 simple ways how to humidify a room naturally. Use several of these on a regular basis to keep your home humid throughout the winter season or in unusually dry climate.  

1. Hang your clothes to dry in your room:  

When your clothes are drying the moisture that they are holding is slowly evaporating. Take advantage of this process by drying your clothes in a room you want to keep humid. If you leave them to dry overnight, it will humidify the room while you sleep and you will have dry clothes to wear in the morning!

2. Adopt Houseplants:  

Plants can help keep your house humid if you spray them with water (in addition to watering them) one or more times a day. Like humans, plants sweat and thus excrete water vapor that increases humidity and there are many plants, perfect for humidifying your house.

3. Place a bowl of water near a heat source:  

Some people suggest placing an open bowl of water in the center of a room to keep it humid, but doing this will only provide a moderate and barely noticeable increase. Instead, put that water near a heat source. This is one of the best ways how to humidify a room with air conditioning. The heat will increase the rate of evaporation of the water which will keep your room cooler and more humid over time.
Check out Our Top 10 Whole House Humidifiers!

4. Leave Water boiling:  

Another great way to humidify a room naturally and perhaps a more effective alternative to the above trick, is to boil the water before placing it near the heat source or keep the water boiling for an extended period of time. Boiling water is a fast and easy way to humidify a room with a bowl of water.

5. Leave the bathroom door open while taking shower:  

Another common way water vapor is released is during a hot shower. If you enjoy taking hot showers and live alone / with people who respect your privacy, keep your bathroom door open while you shower so that the water vapor can humidify the adjacent rooms. This will also have the additional benefit of fogging up your bathroom mirrors much less.

6. Cook on the Stovetop:  

Everyone loves cozying up to a campfire during the winter and cooking on a stove top is a good indoor alternative. But did you know that using a stovetop also releases moisture? Use your stovetop as often as possible to release more moisture into your kitchen.

7. Use Sponge to Humidify:  

Here is a use for a sponge that does not involve using it to clean your car during the summer! When we ask ourselves how to humidify a room naturally, most people do not immediately think of sponges. Yet sponges are made for absorbing moisture and holding it for long periods of time, thus making it a great way to increase humidity when no other alternative is available. Large sponges ideally work best, but fill a sponge with water and put it in an open bowl or plastic bag. Place the bowl or hand the bag in the center of the room and feel the humidity increase in the next few hours using just a sponge!

8. Spray your curtains:  

Spraying your curtains with water is an extremely fast way to make a room more humid but use sparingly as too much can ruin certain types of curtains.

9. Set vases of water on sunny window sills:  

Similar to humidifying a room with a bowl of water, you can place a vase on a windowsill on sunny days to slowly increase the moisture in the air over time. The good thing about this natural way to increase humidity is that it does not require boiling water, you can keep your home humid with the natural heat of the sun.

10. Use a bathroom fan:  

This is not referring to the exhaust fan that comes in some bathrooms, this is actually used to reduce the moisture in the air. But if you are resistant to the cold using a fan in the bathroom might be a good idea. The cool air generated by the fan will help the room way less stuffy and dry.

11. Let your tub’s water cool instead of immediately draining:  

Many natural tricks for increasing humidity involve evaporating water, and using your tub is no exception. If you enjoy hot baths, consider keeping the hot water in the bath for a few hours instead of draining it. The slowly evaporating water will humidify the bathroom and any adjacent rooms if you keep your bathroom door open.

12. Invest in an indoor fountain:  

At first thought, this may seem like an expensive option, but there are plenty of cheap indoor fountains that can keep your home humid all throughout the winter. Many fountains work by recycling the same water over and over, this constant running source definitely keeps the room cool for extended periods of time.

Hopefully, after reading this article, you no longer have to ask yourself how to humidify a room naturally without a humidifier. During the summer it is easy enough to keep humid, but avoiding the symptoms of a dry climate during the winter without air conditioning shouldn’t be difficult if you implement some of these cunning tricks.

Categorised in: Health Benefits, Techniques and skills