Humidifiers and Dehumidifiers - Dry house, to humidify or not to humidify.

I am in the process of finishing my basement and was wondering about humidifiers. Our house seems really dry and the static from our cat and dog is horrible. I was thinking about adding a humidifier during this project. I was just curious what experiences people have had with humidifiers. Are they beneficial, what are the pros and cons, anything to guide my path would be very appreciated.

You need a hydrometer to find out what the relative humidty really is. Honeywell makes a thermometer/hydrometer for about $20.

Anything between about 25 and 40 percent is good.

You will be really happy you put in a humidifier come winter. The house will be much more comfortable at lower temps. If your air handler is mounted in air conditioned space this is a pretty easy DIY project. If not you have to run a small duct from the humidifier back to the air return. It will have to be connected to water, wired into the furnace, and you will have to cut a hole in your ducts. In the winter I vent the clothes dryer inside the house. This works really well for me, free heat, well its reclaimed heat anyway.

If your house is too dry in the summer you probably live somewhere you should be using a swamp cooler or something is wrong with AC.

I bought a couple of portable Kenmore dehumidifiers at Goodwill. After cleaning them up they both seem to work well with one exception. When I set the humidistats to 50% they dont come on until the humdity reaches a little over 70% and go off at about 35%. Both units do exactly the same thing. Is there somethig wrong or is this the nature of the beast. I wanted to use them to help my HVAC get rid of some of the humidity in the house.

I know someone will ask so the reason I need to this is that I recently added insulation to my house and installed solar sheilds on west wall of the house exposed to the full sun. Now my AC runs a lot less and I didnt want to cool the house anymore than what I am doing now.