Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Keep The Humidity Down To Reduce Mold


Controlling the humidity level in your home is one of the most important things that you can do to make sure mold does not start to grow and this is not very difficult to do. You do not want to make the air in your home too dry, though, since this can cause nose bleeds and other forms of nasal irritation for the members of your household. Air that is too dry or too wet can cause problems for any respiratory system, so keeping the humidity level in your home around a medium level is optimum.

Keeping the humidity level in your bathroom down is fairly easy if you have an exhaust vent installed that will draw the steam out of the room when you take a bath or a shower. The steam is soaked up by the upper walls and ceiling, causing it to become molded and eventually, to crack and collapse.

This can cause injury if you are in the room at the time, so installing an exhaust vent is a good idea. Building codes usually dictate that a bathroom have either a window or an exhaust vent, but windows are fairly inefficient in releasing the steam from the room since it settles at the ceiling instead of the middle of the room. Unless the window is located near the ceiling, it is not going to work as well as an exhaust vent.

Basements are also prone to having humidity problems and you can solve this by installing an exhaust vent here, as well. This is not the only solution, though, since you can also replace your basement windows to make the more energy efficient and therefore, allow less moisture from outside the house inside. Dehumidifiers can help take care of humidity problems that stem from the simple fact that the room is underground.

Keeping the humidity down in the house means reducing the moisture across all areas of the home. Wash wet clothes and dry them as soon as possible to keep the moisture from evaporating in the laundry room and never put dry dirty clothes on top of wet ones. Mold loves warmth and moisture, so you are only helping their cause by doing this. It really is a bad habit to let yourself get into, so try to wash damp towels at least once a day instead of letting them dry in the laundry room naturally.

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