Static electricity

[DickR]

Originally Posted by SailinAway

Yeah, I have containers of water all over the place plus a humidifier and a kettle. I've never seen a winter this dry before. I wonder if it's because I had roof vents installed last summer? Maybe the vents are allowing the humidity to escape? Usually the basement gets quite humid in the winter, but not this year.

I thought we had gone over this in prior threads. Excessive dryness in a dwelling in winter almost always is due to too much air leakage into/out of the outer shell. That leakage, worst in extremely cold weather, comes in down low (below the "neutral pressure plane") and out up high, such as into the attic space. This uncontrollable flow flushes out the moisture produce by human occupancy; the exterior air replacing what's inside is extremely dry in winter, in terms of absolute humidity. An uncomfortably dry house needs tightening up.

If adding roof vents did indeed result in increased interior dryness, that's a very strong indication of excessive leakage from interior into the attic. Then the first place to address in your tightening up program is the attic floor. Go up there, uncover all places where there are wiring penetrations and light fixtures, and seal those places with can foam (the orange stuff, for wiring contact). Install an attic hatchway insulation/air sealing kit.

A useful effort likely would be to have someone come in with a blower door and IR camera, to measure relative leakiness and locate places where cold air is coming in.