Hygrometer...

It's fascinating being the proud owner of a hygrometer...

[Although I have to own up to getting my hygrometer confused with my hydrometer; people who know me might leap to conclusions!]

The day I was complaining about the rain (well, not complaining, more commenting on), I'd woken up and the bedroom smelled damp.

OK, slightly damp, and if you sniffed hard, but still more damp than not-damp.

Not being keen on damp, and being the proud owner of a dehumidifier (and a hygrometer), I thought "Aha! Let's see what you can do about this!"

The relative humidity in the bedroom was 94%. The rest of the house was about 68%...

[To put that into context today is less humid-feeling than yesterday and the house is around 50% humidity - comfortable. The cellars were 83/84% yesterday (today 77%), and I was wondering if that was too damp to store my gardening tools...]

I've had the dehumidifier going almost constantly in the bedroom and that brought the level down to 52% (it's now 55% because I switched off the dehumidifier to see what effect opening the window would have instead; it had been too damp for air passing through to dry the room out), so the room is still damper than the rest of the house - it doesn't get air passing through it the same, as the door is near the window.

I've also been noting the humidity when the day feels "dry" to me and when it's been raining...

Conclusion: opening the windows on a dry day seems a lot more effective than a dehumidifier, but if you don't have a dry day a dehumidifier is brilliant!

Oh, and the damp smell in the bedroom passed in less than 24 hours and hasn't come back!

[And when I say damp smell, it's nothing like some of the things I've bought off eBay, so I wasn't too worried; just didn't want it getting any worse.]

Well, I'm fascinated anyway!