OK, I'll try. I am not asthmatic, but I still feel stifled when the humidity is too low in hot rooms. My nose seems to close up for the dry air. I hope that the following helps to clarify some of what I previously wrote. When it is cold outside and you are heating, you can have relative humidity inside that is too low for comfort. The first step, or me, is awareness. I'd advise you to get a couple of inexpensive electronic hygrometers. (Two so you can use one as a check on the other.) The figures that are usually given for comfort and health are between 30 and 50%. Below 30% and comfort suffers when it is cold. Above 50% yields mold growth and a clammy feel in cooling season. Sometimes in the winter you can get condensation on cold surfaces (windows for example) and can't reach 30% inside. Air exchange with outdoors reduces humidity in the winter and, typically, increases it in air conditioning (cooling) season. Sealing up air leaks helps you control that. An open combustion heater like a fireplace or an unsealed stove draws air into a home to supply the fire. You are probably aware of this because it can cause backdrafts in water heaters which is bad. It also ramps up air introduction from outdoors and dries the air out unless make-up air is supplied right at the device. Depending on the house and conditions, sometimes I don't use my exhaust fan for showering in the winter to increase indoor humidity. There are three ways that heat is transferred, conduction, convection and radiation. Heat sources are usually a combination of the three in one way or another. Without going into detail, when you are standing next to an open fireplace, what you feel on the side facing the fireplace is entirely from radiation. Convection requires moving fluid or gas. Most of the heat you feel from any radiator, baseboard or otherwise is via convection in air. Conduction of heat is from direct touching of materials. it is important to note that the intensity of radiation of any kind, heat, light, x-rays,.... falls off with the square of distance. That means that as you walk away from the stove, doubling your distance decreases the heat you feel by lots more than a factor of 2. A wood stove gets very hot, so you will feel a lot of radiation. You and other close-by objects will heat up because of it. There is heat transfer from convection as well. Most of what we call radiators are much cooler than that. That means that convection takes over from radiation as a heat transfer mechanism, usually from a broader surface area. The only common household "radiator" that I can think of that may be an exception is a radiant electric heater. These have no fan and tend to feel like you are standing at a fire. That is why I wrote that you are unlikely to get a fire-side feel from any radiator, baseboard or otherwise, powered by your boiler. The theoretical max temp of your radiators less than 100 C and the practical operating temp is much lower. It pales in comparison to the temp of the surface of a wood stove or an orange-hot electric coil.

thanks for the honeywell link sniffdog I'm kinda late for the discusstion, but wanted to contribute. I'm all about the build tight ventilate right. But..unless you actually test for tightness of building envelope the question is if you will need fresh air or not. Lots of homes are not tight enough to require fresh air. And contrary to the install on the link provided by sniffdog..I wouldn't run my fresh air supply along the roof line. Too hot in my climate. The temp of the air in august would be too high for most central systems to dehumidify and cool. For the program I work with any home with less than .35 air changes per hour requires mechanical ventilation. There is even a ventilation standard..ASHRAE 62.2 to determine how much (how many CFM cubic feet per minute) of air is to be added to the home. But first you have to test the house with a blower door to determine if the .35 ach has been met. If in fact the house is tight enough to require fresh air. then you want to carefully choose your location that the fresh air will be drawn from. clean it..measure it and condition it before it enters the living space of the home. I usually install a 12x12" filter back grill under a porch this allows you to filter the air, and the location is where air is cooler, as opposed to attic. an insulated sealed duct to the return side of the central system is added, this runs along the floor of the attic. At the return air plenum a barometric damper is installed, set to cfm as determined by number of occupants and ashrae 62.2 the damper opens for instance when stove vent is in use and both bath fans are in use. as the fans turn off..the damper closes. These fans are to vent the humidity out of the living space. less humidity allows for RH levels to even out for better iaq and a healthy house. When the house is not calling for air ( fresh air required to keep house from going into a negative pressure) the damper remains closed. by putting the fresh air to the return side of the system, it is dehumidified before entering the house. the idea is to keep the house under a slight positive pressure so that it is not sucking through unsealed holes. This is just the way that has evolved for me over the years to address this situation. Keep in mind that these homes were tested and amount of fresh air...and need for this added air..was verified and not just based on home owner or builder assuming that the structure was actually tight enough to require fresh air. skuttle 216 is one example of a barometric damper. install the set up described above..set the weight on the damper..and forget about it..except for changing the filter in the 12x12 fbg. keep in mind that mine is a hot humid climate best of luck.

HomeSealed - here's the full text of their "additional grounds" - does it influence your opinion one way or the other? "We have determined it is not a warranty due to the following; your inner dome had a thick, greasy residue on them, this is only on the inner dome, not the outer layers. Enclosed is a sample from your skylight. You can feel the grease on the skylight compared to the side of the skylight that did not have access into your home. Occasionally, when there is not enough ventilation in a home, products like hairsprays, cleaners, oils and fragrances can attach to the acrylic when a home is not ventilated adequately. "If the acrylic was defective, all layers would be cracking/crazing. In this case it has been determined that there is some type of internal environmental contributing factors. We have made this determination due to the fact that only the inner layer of the skylight is beginning to have some cracking/crazing issues. "In summary, your domes will crack again and it will not be a warranty replacement." There is a residue on the skylight, although I think they're overstating their case by causing it a "thick, greasy residue". I suspect it's from the fireplace located in the same room as the skylights. It's a modern fireplace insert with glass doors, but there often is a little smoke in the room when we're first starting the fire. Here's one photo of the window "beginning to have some cracking/crazing issues".

Absolutely beautiful. I love it!!! (Now that you said she's wearing a white dress I blew it up and see it just fine. However on a quick first glance on a small screen it did indeed look like a severed head. I would not recommend changing a thing about it just because of that though. LOL. It's incredibly well done and in person would be a very different experience than on a tiny screen...) You have a great eye. Normally I'm not a fan of black baseboards, but seeing your eye and aesthetic I say go for it. It's not quick, but it's not particularly hard - just tedious. Thank you for sharing with us. If you do tackle the baseboards I'd love to see the after....