Best Ides To Prevent Your Home From Mold And Mildew

Mold and mildew have their place. Your home is not that place. However, mold spores can grow in various locations in and around your house. This includes in carpet, on clothing, behind drywall, in gutters, above ceiling tiles and various other places moisture collects.

Mold and mildew can be harmful to your health as they can produce allergens and irritants. If your household has one or more child in it, along with adults with sensitivities, you will want to prevent mold and mildew from developing.

Tips To Prevent Mold & Mildew

Here is a list of suggestions of how to prevent mold and mildew from developing in your home.

1. Identify The Problem Areas

The first step to ridding your home of mold and mildew is to identify the problem areas. Some clues to watch for include a basement that floods often, condensation on windows, a water stain on the wall or ceiling and a dampness to the touch on certain walls in your home.

Once you find any problem locations, you have to get to the bottom of the problem and get it fixed. There are many issues that can cause areas of concern… some of which may mean waterproofing, replacing carpet or roof tiles, or a major excavation to remedy the situation.

2. Get Rid Of Existing Moisture

Moisture is the one element that is required in order for mold or mildew to form. By removing any standing water that you discover, you take away the primary medium required for the development of mold or mildew.

Any wet spots you find in and around your home, including the basement or crawlspace, should be mopped up as soon as possible. Gutters where water pools should be repaired and anything that has been water damaged has to be removed.

3. Move The Air Around

There are certain rooms in your home that are more likely to create the conditions needed for mold growth. The bathroom, kitchen, laundry room and crawlspace are all places where high moisture content is produced just from normal daily activities.

Showers, cooking and doing the laundry all contribute to this. In order to combat the effects of the excess moisture created by these activities, you have to provide ventilation. By moving the air around your house, the moisture has a better chance to evaporate and does not build up as easily.

4. Shift To Mold-Resistant Products

One way to beat mold and mildew is to start shifting the types of products you use inside your home. This means that if you are renovating your home, you would be looking to change out some items and replacing them with others.

This could include mold-resistant drywall and mold inhibitors when choosing painting products. Many good paints have built-in mold inhibitors, and these can really help to eliminate or reduce mold in damp areas. However, in order to remove mold and keep it from returning, you have to completely eliminate any of the possible conditions required for mold development.

5. Watch Humidity Levels

The humidity – that’s the amount of moisture in the air you breathe – inside your home should be between 30 and 60 percent. This is the ideal humidity range to have inside your home for best health and comfort levels, as well as being good for your home and furniture. You can monitor humidity with a hygrometer that can be purchased at your local hardware store.

When the levels fall outside of that range, you can either add moisture with a small humidifier or remove it with a good home dehumidifier. Both of these are also available at good hardware stores.

6. Change The Water Course

Take a look at the ground around your home. It should be sloping away from the foundation so that if there is any heavy rain or flooding, water is directed away from your home instead of towards it.

You may have to build up the ground around your home slightly to achieve this, but it will keep water from collecting in your basement, carport or under your house, which can promote the development of mold or mildew.

7. The Roof And Gutters

We’ve mentioned roof gutters briefly already. When they get clogged with leaves, twigs and assorted other debris they back up. When there is a heavy rain, the stopped-up gutters are not helping to move the rain collected off the roof.

If allowed to backup, you may experience water damage from a leak in your roof, or water overflowing and running into the eaves in your roof space. Keeping gutters clean and repaired prevents this.

8. Improve Ventilation In Your Home

Ventilation isn’t just for when you take a hot shower or are creating an excessive amount of steam on the kitchen stove. By having proper air flow throughout your home at all times, moisture does not have a chance to collect.

You just have to allow air to circulate throughout your home or apartment, by using fans or just by opening windows, which can keep the interior of your home smelling fresh and mold free.

9. Dust Your Plants

Mold can grow on indoor house plants, and it is always a good idea to keep that from happening. You can do this simply by adding some Taheebo tea to the water to feed your house plants with.

Available in health food stores, the oil of taheebo comes from a tree native to the rainforests which happens to be mold-resistant. It will prevent mold from forming in the soil of house plants watered with it.

The More You Know, The More You Can Fight Mold And Mildew

It never hurts to do a little bit of homework on your own in an effort to stay one step ahead of mold and mildew. Understanding the existing moisture levels in your home and knowing the signs of what to look for, as well as taking preventative measures to minimize excessive moisture will assist you.

As mentioned, mold and mildew can cause many health-related issues and can cause extensive damage to your property and possessions, so the better educated you become, the easier it will be for you to identify and remedy situations in and around your home before they get out of hand.

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