Do You Need to Dehumidify Your Basement?

What do you do with your basement? Some folks pile up stuff they want to save, shut the door and forget the room exists. There are some that do their laundry in the basement. Others just don't go in their basements. For the most part, one does not stop to think that the basement is damp. If you do not have a dehumidifier for basement, your basement is wet and contains mold. Ever see black on those cardboard boxes of car parts? Your basement has that musty smell like a lot of basements. Over time, there is a desensitization of the smell of mold; you just don't smell it anymore.

Mold grows in dark, damp and warm places. Sounds like most basements. The most common place mold exists is the basement. Because they are located below grade, are subject to water pressure on the foundation, flood out, and have improper grading against the foundation, there is water and mold in basements. More causes are not insulated pipes, dirt crawl spaces, and lack of a dehumidifier to lower moisture in humid months, plus just being old and deteriorating with owners not aware of the problems lurking downstairs.

Mold is a serious health hazard that is only starting to gain attention. Mold causes allergy like symptoms,like sinus congestion, body aches and pains, headaches, (can be like migraines), asthma, other breathing problems like emphysema, cognitive impairment, brain fog, sensitivity to light, fibromyalgia symptoms, chronic fatigue which gets worse over time. It also causes more serious problems like pulmonary edema, brain damage, and even death. People end up getting very sick and many doctors do not know why. Mold can destroy the quality of life to the point of not being able to work anymore, disabled.

It cannot be understated: you must dehumidify your basement with a dehumidifier for basement. Dehumidifiers remove humidity from the air to where mold will not grow. Optimally, moisture needs to be around 50% to keep mold from growing. To dehumidify your basement is the first step in killing mold. You cannot start to kill mold until you reduce the humidity level. The size of the dehumidifier is important. If too small it will not sufficiently pull enough water out of the air to reduce humidity.

The basement needs cleaned of all materials that mold grows on: (any organic material that decays), wood and paper products, drywall, cardboard boxes of junk, cloth, even food which is stored in a paper lining like dog food. Clean out the basement of the fuzzy black, white or blue mold. Sweep with a HEPA vacuum and wipe all the surfaces of a mixture of cleaning product, borax and peroxide.

The dehumidifier has to keep running for most of the year. The only time of the year when it is not humid in the Northeast is the winter. Some places humidity occurs at different times. Remember that if there is mold in the basement the second you open the basement door, mold just escaped into the upstairs...but that is another topic. Dehumidify your basement for the health of your family.