A Dehumidifier Could be a Sign Your Home is Damaged
If your home has high levels of moisture within the air, this can cause problems for you and your home. High humidity can lead to increase in growth of molds which can be bad for your health. A device called a dehumidifier (or luftbefeuchter in Germany as I discovered) can lower the levels of moisture within the air.
However, if you have to keep a dehumidifier constantly running, you should get your house checked for structural weaknesses. Alternatively, if you are searching for a new home to buy, finding any existing mold problems is important before you take the keys.
When buying a new home, you should be aware of any smells within the home. Smells are a good sign that there is mold within the home. Even if the smell is of bleach, this could mean that the owners have been using bleach to try and remove the mold.
Molds will often create a musty smells in the home, especially in bathrooms and basements, where humidity levels are generally high.
A university in America is currently researching into a system which would allow you to look up what the air quality is in that area. Although you wouldn’t be able to tell what the air quality was like inside a home, you could get an idea. Generally if the air quality is poor and full of moisture outside, this can often spread into the homes in the area.
Unfortunately the system is still in testing, plus it would require thousands of sensors which would monitor the air quality of a city. Alternatively, while you are house hunting, you could get a thermo-hygrometer to monitor the air quality.
If you currently have a problem with high moisture levels in your home, a dehumidifier is one way to combat it. However, if you ignore the problem, it can spread around the home can potentially cause structural problems. Fixing structural issues caused by mold can be expensive work and if it’s not resolved, the mold can affect your health.
It’s odd, as I was researching for this article, I found lots of foreign equivalents. It’s slightly odd how the Mexican translation of dehumidifiers humidificadores, and the French translation, humidificateurs, can be almost the same whereas the German, luftbefeuchter, is nothing like the others.
Tags: air quality, appliances, dehumidifiers, health, home