How to deal with Moisture and Humidity in your Home!
January 15, 2021
Did you know Vancouver Island is a Rainforest? Not your typical broad-leaf plants and monkeys’ type of rainforest, – It’s called the coastal temperate rainforest. It consists of conifers, ferns and animals like deer and salamanders. With living in a rainforest, comes humidity. Humidity problems usually occur during our cooler months, as we see an increase in wet weather and colder temperatures. Generally, during these months we keep our windows and outside doors closed more, and this reduces indoor air circulation and ventilation.
Your day-to-day household activities such as cooking, showering, doing laundry and dishwashing can release as much as 10-50L of moisture into your home a day. People, pets and indoor plants also contribute to humidity.
Signs of high humidity levels:
- Property may feel clammy
- Property has a musty odor
- Water pooling on windowsills or sliding doors
- Wet carpets at the bottom of big glass windows
- Water stains on walls or ceilings, this can be worse in closets.
- Mold spores around Windows
- Crack your windows a small amount for a few hours per day
- Always use kitchen fan when cooking
- Turn on bathroom fan when showering or bathing
- Leave bathroom fans on for several hours per day
- Limit the amount of indoor potted plants
- In many apartment buildings, there may be a small air gap below your entry door, this creates airflow, do not block this air gap
- Open drapes and blinds for at least a few hours per day
- Ensure a 1 inch gap at the bottom of closets doors, or leave closet doors open
- Do not cover or place boxes against outer walls or windows
- Provide heat to all outer wall areas
- Ensure furniture is not covering heaters
- Maintain temperatures around 20˚C
- Do not directly place furniture up against walls, where possible, try to put furniture against internal walls which will be less cold than external walls.