Dealing with excessive moisture and humidity isn’t fun, especially when you’re stuck at home. Some tell-tale signs of excessive moisture at home include sticky floors and walls, feeling clammy when you’re inside, and dust-induced allergies. If left alone, it can cause serious health hazards and permanent damage to your home.
How Excessive Moisture Affects Us
Before learning how to keep moisture at bay, you need to understand how excessive moisture and humidity affect our health and our homes.
At Home
Causes Mold and Mildew
Ideally, your indoor humidity levels should be anywhere from 30% to 50%. Anything more than that can encourage the growth of mold and mildew, which can negatively impact your indoor air quality and cause unpleasant stains and odors. They can also cause you to experience itchiness, a stuffy nose, and in some cases, it can even lead to respiratory problems.
Damages Electronics
Moisture is one of the main reasons why electronics malfunction. This is especially true for places where summers are humid. Humidity and moisture can cause circuits to corrode, oxidate, and rust. When this happens, your gadgets may short-circuit, which isn’t only bad for your gadgets but also dangerous to your home and your safety. If you want to keep yourself, your gadgets, and your belongings safe, you’ll want to avoid any excess moisture or humidity from entering your home.
Attracts Bugs
Bugs love warmth and humidity, and when your house offers that, you’re practically holding up a welcome sign and giving them the green light to enter your home. Since many bugs, insects, and pests require water to survive, a home with a lot of moisture is a perfect place for them to stay and breed. If you want to get rid of cockroaches, ants, springtails, and other troublesome pests, it’s important to keep your indoor humidity and moisture levels at bay.
Your Health
When we spend most of our days at home, air quality is more important than ever. Bacteria and viruses thrive in very low and very high humidity and can cause allergies or worsen respiratory problems. If your house is too humid, your sweat won’t evaporate as quickly, causing even the healthiest of people to feel faint or have a hard time breathing.
How to Control Moisture and Humidity at Home
Replace Your Old Windows
Properly insulating your home is one of the best ways to keep moisture at bay. Without it, air can get in through small holes and pockets throughout your house, usually by the doors or windows, and can cause condensation. This is especially true during the colder months when the warm air condenses with the cold windows. This is a tell-tale sign that your house contains excessive moisture and needs to be taken care of. If your windows are dated or you’re experiencing condensation, consider having a new window installed to help properly insulate your home and protect it from any avoidable damage caused by moisture.
Dehumidify Your Home
There are different ways to dehumidify your home and remove moisture, but using a dehumidifier is the easiest way to do so. Dehumidifiers reduce moisture by drawing warm air into a fan and transferring the condensation into the humidifier. However, dehumidifiers are generally costly for your wallet and your energy consumption.
If you don’t want to get a humidifier, there are more natural ways to reduce the moisture in your home, such as placing pots of calcium chloride in damp corners, improving ventilation, fixing leaks, and taking shorter showers.
Don’t Overwater Your Plants
Plants are also a source of moisture, so if you scatter them around the house, chances are, your indoor humidity levels will rise. If possible, consider placing your plants outside or at least try to keep them concentrated in one area of your house. This way, you won’t be spreading the moisture throughout your home, and you’ll have an easier time dehumidifying a single room.
It also helps not to overwater your plants- not only does it hurt your plants, but it unnecessarily increases your home’s overall humidity.
Introduce Natural Air into Your Home
Opening your windows is an easy and cost-effective way to reduce indoor humidity levels. You don’t have to keep them open throughout the day- instead, have them open for 20 to 30 minutes every day to let any moisture in your home leave. By doing this, you’ll get fresh and dry air that’s good for your body and helps reduce any excess moisture you may have in your home.
As we continue to spend more time at home, we must take care of our health and our homes. The key to keeping our homes at the right humidity levels is prevention, so whether it’s by insulating your home, moving your plants, or getting some fresh air, these tips will help you stay healthy and keep your home in tip-top shape.
