The 2 key appliances you need to prepare for humid weather

In Australia, we’re all too used to dealing with intense weather conditions of one kind or another. From floods to bushfires, it’s a wide brown land of extremes. While most of us use fans or air conditioners to deal with summer’s high temperatures, and heaters to manage during the colder months, we don’t always have the right appliances to help us cope with the challenge of humidity.

As well as making the air feel uncomfortably clammy, humidity can cause a couple of problems around the home. Whether you’re hanging up wet clothes to dry or simply trying to keep your home clean and healthy, high humidity can throw a spanner in the works.

In this article, we look at where and why humidity can be a problem in Australia, as well as how tumble dryers and dehumidifiers can help you overcome these challenges.

For starters, high humidity can make the air feel clammy. With the air already heavy with moisture, sweat evaporates more slowly, making us feel sticky and uncomfortable. While that’s unpleasant, humid conditions can cause bigger problems than discomfort. 

In terms of household chores, high humidity can make laundry drying a painful exercise. If you hang your clothes on laundry drying racks on humid days, the moist air slows down the drying process and can leave garments with a horrible stale smell.

As well as being a domestic inconvenience, high humidity can cause problems for your health and your home. By providing the moisture that mould spores need to germinate and thrive, it creates ideal conditions for the growth of this potentially dangerous fungus. Mould spores can trigger allergies, breathing problems, asthma attacks and, if mycotoxins are present, a range of other health problems. It also looks and smells very unpleasant, and can compromise a building’s structural integrity by damaging wood, drywall and insulation.

Dust mites also thrive in high humidity environments. In these conditions, they actually absorb moisture from the air (rather than drink it), which enables them to thrive and reproduce with ease. More dust mites means more dust mite droppings, which can cause allergic reactions and aggravate respiratory issues.

Above 60% relative humidity is generally considered high, and over 70% very high. This percentage indicates the amount of water vapour in the air relative to the maximum amount of moisture the air could hold at any given temperature. For example, if the air has 100% relative humidity, it is fully saturated with moisture and can’t hold any more water vapour. At this level, known as the 'dew point', condensation, rain or drizzle will likely occur.

The temperature at which 100% humidity occurs can vary according to recent rainfall, local geography and time of day. In tropical climates, for example, 100% humidity can occur at between 25 to 35°C, while in coastal areas it might be reached at temperatures a few degrees lower.

A few key factors influence humidity levels.

Contrary to what our international marketing campaigns might suggest, it’s not always sunny in Australia! In fact, Sydney usually gets twice as much rainfall as London (it just tends to be heavier and less frequent). A combination of hot weather and heavy rainfall can contribute to high humidity. After rainfall, the water on the ground can evaporate into the warm air, increasing the moisture content in the atmosphere.

In the tropical north of Australia, cities like Cairns and Darwin have annual average rainfalls that often approach or exceed 2,000 millimetres. Moving south, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne generally experience more moderate rainfall but still contend with extreme downpours and flooding. In fact, 2022 was Sydney’s wettest year on record, with over 2,500mm of rain.

In contrast, Adelaide and Perth experience comparatively lower annual rainfall. However, when rain does fall, it can be very intense.

Even without particularly high rainfall, though, warm air’s ability to hold on to water vapour can result in increased humidity in certain locations and conditions.

Areas near oceans or lakes often experience higher humidity because the water surface provides a continuous source of moisture to be evaporated.

Similarly, dense vegetation and greenery can release moisture through the process of transpiration, in which the plant draws water up from the soil and releases it as water vapour into the atmosphere. This additional moisture can contribute to higher humidity levels in localised areas, like rainforests, mangroves and wetlands, and even in densely vegetated urban green spaces.

High humidity can be an issue all over Australia, but generally, the further north you are, the more of a problem it can pose.

While it can occur in the winter months, the higher temperatures of the summer, often accompanied by increased rainfall in tropical regions, tend to usher in more problematic humidity levels.

Northern NSW and far north SA experience their highest humidity levels from December to February. In Queensland, this stretches another couple of months through to April. Meanwhile, in the NT and northern WA, this high humidity season lasts half the year, from November to April.

Regardless of where you live in Australia, it pays to be prepared to deal with wet and humid conditions, especially when it comes to drying clothes and preventing issues with air quality, mould and dust mites. This is where clothes dryers and dehumidifiers can make your life significantly easier, as well as potentially healthier.

When you have the conditions and time to do so, air drying your laundry is the cheap and environmentally friendly option. When high humidity makes it impractical though, you’ll be grateful for having bought yourself a clothes dryer.

You’ll find that you have three main options when it comes to choosing a dryer: vented, heat pump and condenser. To pick the right one for your needs, you’ll need to think about purchase price, running costs, energy efficiency, laundry space and layout, as well as humidity control.

Vented dryers are generally the cheapest type of dryer to buy, and have the advantage of being light enough to be wall-mounted if you have limited laundry space. However, they are less energy efficient and have higher running costs than heat pump dryers.

They also require ducted external ventilation to expel the hot moist air generated while they’re running. If you don’t have this ventilation installed, the machine will simply release the warm wet air into your laundry and turn it into a bit of a steam room, adding to the humidity issue that you’re doing your best to beat!

Condenser dryers usually cost more than vented dryers to buy, and they are too heavy to be wall-mounted (though they can be stacked on top of a washing machine). Like vented dryers, they are less energy efficient and more expensive to run than heat pump dryers.

The advantage they have over vented models is that they don’t need to have external ventilation. The dryer condenses the moisture from the hot air inside the dryer’s drum into water, so the warm air that is released into the laundry is dry rather than wet.

Heat pump dryers are more expensive to buy than vented dryers, but a similar price to condenser models. They are actually a type of condenser dryer, but with advanced compressor technology that makes them dramatically more energy efficient and cheaper to run. Like condenser dryers, they are too heavy to be wall-mounted, but can be stacked on top of front load washers.

Because they dry laundry at a lower temperature than the other types of dryers, heat pump dryers’ cycles often take longer. However, their lower and slower energy-saving approach can be gentler on fabric, and because their refrigerant system dehumidifies the air during the drying process, they don’t expel moist air and therefore don’t need any external ventilation to be installed.

Whichever type of dryer you go for, you’ll be relieved to have it during times of high humidity when the laundry hanging on the airer never seems to dry. And at these sticky times, you’ll also be pleased you bought a dehumidifier.

If anyone in your family suffers from allergies or respiratory issues, or if you have problems with damp, mould or mildew in your home, a dehumidifier could be your next best investment.

Dehumidifiers work by extracting excess moisture from the air, collecting it as water and cycling the dried air back into the room. There are two main types of dehumidifiers, refrigerant (compressor) and desiccant, and they work in different ways.

Refrigerant dehumidifiers operate similarly to air conditioning in that they use a refrigeration cycle to cool a set of coils. When warm, humid air is drawn into the unit, it passes over these cold coils, and the moisture in the air condenses into water droplets, which are collected in a reservoir. The dried air is reheated to a comfortable temperature and released back into the room.

Refrigerant dehumidifiers are effective in warmer environments and are suitable for general household use.

Desiccant dehumidifiers use silica gel, or a similar desiccant material, to absorb moisture from the air. The moist air is drawn into the dehumidifier and passed over the desiccant, which absorbs the water vapour. The damp desiccant material is then regenerated (dried) either by heating it or using a separate stream of dry air to release the collected moisture.

Desiccant dehumidifiers are often more energy-efficient at lower temperatures, making them suitable for cooler environments and spaces where they will be in continuous operation.

As well as removing regular levels of moisture from humid air, some dehumidifiers come with a ‘laundry mode’, a specific setting designed to speed up the process of drying clothes indoors on a drying rack.

When set to laundry mode, the dryer works harder to increase airflow and remove moisture from the air more quickly. This creates a drier environment that allows water vapour from the damp clothes to evaporate more rapidly.

Drying times will vary by type of material, room temperature, humidity and other factors, but some manufacturers claim that laundry mode can improve drying times by up to 40%. If you haven’t got a clothes dryer, or you do but are not using it for some reason, laundry mode dehumidifying presents an alternative, albeit a considerably slower one.

With the right home appliances, the arrival of wet and humid days needn’t signal discomfort or inconvenience. Appliances Online stocks a huge range of dryers from dozens of brands, whether you opt for a vented or condenser model, or the ventilation-free convenience and lower energy costs of a heat pump dryer.

We also offer dozens of dehumidifiers of varying capacities, capable of minimising moisture build-up in the air and reducing the incidence of mildew, mould, dust mites and unpleasant damp odours in rooms of all sizes.

Can’t stand the thought of another clammy night or musty smelling laundry? We deliver dryers and dehumidifiers to 95% of Australia's population with Appliances Online's legendary FREE delivery - and we can usually get it to you by the next day (Mon-Fri) as long as it's in stock. Plus, we now offer paid Same Day Delivery in NSW, QLD, and VIC metro areas if you order before 12pm weekdays. We'll even take your old disconnected appliances away for recycling, for free.

For more tips on choosing, check out our Laundry Buying Guide and our Dehumidifier Buying Guide, call our friendly team 24/7 on 1300 000 500, or message us via the chat icon at the bottom right of your screen.