Be more intelligent with humidity warnings in Air Comfort

Right now you get warnings that your humidity is too high or may cause mould at certain hard coded values i.e. greater than 60% RH or greater than 70% RH for mould.

However, humidity is only an issue when it is colder outside and humid air reaches a surface that causes it to reach its dew point by cooling down and causing condensation on that external surface that then leads to mould.

Some examples:

  • If it is 21c inside, 21c outside and the humidity both outside and inside is 75% this is not an issue. There is nothing that can be done to remedy it without a dehumidifier which might make things more comfortable but is not necessary to prevent any chance of condensation or mould. Warning about 75% RH here is not needed.
  • If it is 21c inside, 16c outside and the humidity outside is 95% as is often the case in the UK, it is physically impossible to get the house below 71% humidity even with all the windows opened or a state of the art heat recovery system. It is also not possible to cause condensation on an external surface even with the worst insulated wall/window until humidity inside reaches at least 74% for those temperatures.

This suggestion is to use thermodynamic equations with the information you have for temperature and humidity outside and inside to calculate and then communicate and warn what humidities should be concerning for causing condensation and mould (you could even have notifications for when they are reached).

If you are curious on the maths you can find a great calculator here: https://www.richard-stanton.com/humidity-calculator/

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Comments

  • I quite agree. I'm fed up with being told that our unused bedrooms are too cold and too humid when there is no source of moisture into the room other than the actual atmosphere outside. Opening a window would be futile. Turning up the heating would be idiotic.

    I've lived in this house for 33 years and never had any problems with excessively high humidity and/or mould.

  • RichardN
    RichardN
    edited October 2021

    It would be nice if outdoor humidity could be added to the Outdoor Air quality box in the Air Comfort section.

    That way you could tell whether it was worth opening windows for drier outside air.

  • I would prefer that Tado gave us (the users) the ability to opt in or opt out of showing the humidity feature. My reason for saying this is because I agree with the comments by @Spateson & @eezytiger and also, I personally feel that all that Tado does with the humidity readings from their devices is to produce the pathetic "comfort" feature. I have previously "challenged" Tado to show exactly how the humidity readings are affecting our heating systems........no reply so far. Don't expect an explanation any time soon (smoke and mirrors philosophy)

  • This gets my vote too!

  • Gets my vote too. The humidity feature requires some attention. Thanks.