The heat's been on for a few weeks now, and the doorknobs have started biting back.
That snap at your fingertip is a tiny bolt of lightning, and the reason it saves itself for winter comes down to the water in the air, or the lack of it.
Below: why winter turns you into a battery, a humidifier for the bedroom, why an LED flickers on an old dimmer, when rock salt quits, what your stove's flame color means, and how an ice dam forms.
Reply and tell us: which doorknob in your house zaps you the most? We read every one.
Why Winter Turns You Into a Battery
Image: The Home Wire
Walk across a carpet in dry winter air and you can build up 35,000 volts. Take the same walk in muggy summer air and it's about 1,500.
Those numbers come from a classic table in a US Navy training manual on static electricity. The same table puts a walk across a vinyl floor at 12,000 volts in dry air and 250 in humid air.
Here's what's going on. When two materials rub together, they swap tiny bits of charge, says Northeastern University physicist Ivana Dimitrova in a university Q&A. Your socks and the carpet do it with every step.
In humid air, water carries that extra charge away as fast as you make it. The University of Kentucky explains that surfaces wear an invisible film of water that bleeds charge off.
Winter air holds very little water, and heating it indoors doesn't add any. So the charge stays on you until you reach for something metal, and it all jumps at once.
TLDR: volts measure how hard a charge pushes. A static shock has a huge push and almost nothing behind it.
That's why it stings but doesn't hurt you. You generally don't feel a zap until you're carrying around 3,000 volts, and it's over in a blink.
Three ways to stop getting bitten:
Lead with a key. Touch the doorknob or faucet with a key or coin first, as Dimitrova suggests. The spark jumps to the key instead of your fingertip.
Add some moisture. A humidifier helps, but keep the room at or under 50% humidity, per the EPA.
Use a dryer sheet. Bounce says the sheets coat fibers with positively charged ingredients, and that nylon and polyester cling more than cotton.
Back in September we covered why winter air feels so dry. Scroll down for the humidifier we'd put in a bedroom.
One quick tap
Worth a Look
A Humidifier Sized for the Bedroom
If the zaps have started at your house, the Levoit Classic 300S is the humidifier we'd point you to for a bedroom, at $79.99 at time of writing.
It's a cool-mist model with a 6-liter tank, which Levoit says runs up to 60 hours on low. It's rated for rooms of 215 to 505 square feet, so a bedroom is well inside its range. It fills from the top, and you can run it from an app.
We haven't run this one through a winter ourselves. The specs come from Levoit's product page, and the price is Levoit's list price.
That said, it's an ultrasonic humidifier, and the EPA notes those can spray the minerals in tap water into the room as a fine white dust. Distilled water avoids it. Keep the room at or under 50%, too.
Links in this post may be affiliate links. The Home Wire may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you.
Why an LED Flickers on an Old Dimmer
If you swapped in LED bulbs and the light now flickers, buzzes or won't dim all the way down, the bulb probably isn't broken. The dimmer is the problem.
An old bulb dims by sending less power through a glowing filament, which fades smoothly. An LED runs on a small circuit, and Leviton, which makes dimmers, says dimming one is more complicated. Many older dimmers weren't built for LEDs.
Leviton lists the symptoms: buzzing, flickering, popping on, dropping out, a short dimming range, and a faint glow when the switch is off.
Here's the order to try fixes in:
Check the bulb box for "dimmable." Lutron notes many LEDs aren't, including a lot of smart bulbs.
Adjust the low-end trim. If it only flickers at the bottom of the range, Lutron says the bulb may not dim as low as the dimmer. Many dimmers have a small trim lever or setting to raise the floor.
Look up your bulb and dimmer together on a compatibility tool like Lutron's LED finder.
Swap in an LED-rated dimmer if the old one still won't cooperate.
Renters, steps 1 to 3 are all yours. Changing the dimmer itself is wiring, so that one's for the landlord or an electrician.
Why Rock Salt Quits Below 15 F
Salt melts ice by lowering the temperature water freezes at. It just runs out of push when it gets cold enough. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency lists the lowest pavement temperatures where each one still works well:
Rock salt: 15 F
Magnesium chloride: -10 F
Calcium chloride: -20 F
Notice those are pavement temperatures, which can differ from the forecast. Salt that's already dissolved into brine works faster than dry grains, too.
Calcium chloride has a trick. It gives off heat as it dissolves, and its maker, OxyChem, says mixing it into water can raise the temperature almost 84 degrees.
Most people also use far too much. Wisconsin Salt Wise says one coffee mug of salt covers a 20-foot driveway or 10 sidewalk squares, scattered so the grains have space between them. Leftover grains on dry pavement mean you used too much, so sweep them up. It takes just 1 teaspoon of salt to pollute 5 gallons of water.
Got a dog? The ASPCA says to wipe paws after walks, and notes the chlorides that work best in deep cold are harder on a dog's stomach if licked off.
What Your Stove's Flame Color Is Telling You
Image: The Home Wire
A healthy gas burner flame is blue, sometimes with a tiny yellow tip. Blue means the gas is burning cleanly, per Jackson Energy Authority, a Tennessee gas utility.
A flame that's mostly yellow or orange means the mix of gas and air is off, and incomplete burning can make carbon monoxide. Often the cause is just dust or a dirty burner. Here's the cleanup, from GE Appliances:
Let the burners cool completely.
Lift off the caps and burner heads.
Clear the little ports with a paper clip or the wire from a twist tie.
Soak heavy grime in hot water with mild dish soap for 20 to 30 minutes, then scrub with a soft brush. GE says not to use ammonia.
Dry every part completely, then set each cap back flat and centered.
Still yellow after a cleaning, or leaving soot on your pans? Call your gas utility or a technician. If anyone at home gets a headache, nausea or dizziness that eases when you step outside, turn the stove off, open windows and get to fresh air. The CPSC says more than 200 people in the US die each year from accidental non-fire CO poisoning.
How an Ice Dam Forms on a Warm Roof
Image: The Home Wire
That thick ridge of ice along a roof edge starts with heat leaking out of the house.
Here's the chain, per a University of Minnesota Extension fact sheet:
Heat leaks into the attic and warms the roof deck.
The warm roof melts the snow sitting on it, and the water runs down under the snow.
The water refreezes at the cold edge, out past the warm part of the house.
More water backs up behind that ridge and seeps under the shingles.
The fact sheet's best clue: you don't see ice dams on sheds, woodpiles or picnic tables. No heat, no dam.
The Minnesota Center for Energy and Environment says the real fix is to air seal and insulate the attic, usually $1,000 to $4,500. Raking snow off the roof only buys time, and both sources steer you away from heat cables.
What not to do: don't chop at the ice or climb onto the roof to break it up. The Minnesota sheet warns against chopping down to the shingles or using a torch.
Renters, if you see icicles and a water stain upstairs, tell the landlord right away.
That's Wednesday: static shocks, a humidifier, LED dimmers, rock salt, flame colors and ice dams.
If you only do one thing this week, carry your keys in your hand to the front door.
Forward this to whoever in your house keeps getting zapped.
See you tomorrow.
The Home Wire
This post may contain affiliate links. The Home Wire may earn a commission if you purchase through our links, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products we believe earn their place in your home.
30 N. Gould St. Suite R Sheridan, WY 82801, United States