It’s Not The Heat, It’s The Humidity
Outside of deserts and a few perfect climates scattered around the globe, humidity is always a factor when it comes to summer heat. However, it hits some places harder than others. The American South, for instance, regularly deals with heat and humidity that makes it hard to do much more than sit on the porch drinking an ice-cold beverage. That, or stay inside with the air conditioner on at full blast.
Maryland is enough of a Southern state that Marylanders often get to “enjoy” this humid weather, and aside from the impact it has on both humans and animals, constant, high humidity can also be a serious problem to houses and other buildings.
Air circulation can be a tricky thing to balance with houses. Too much circulation will make a home drafty and cold during the winter, but too little can cause stuffy, humid air to build up inside during the summer. This is particularly bad news for a basement, where relatively cool temperatures can cause humid air to condensate on concrete walls, steel pipes, and other surfaces.
Condensation can make things feel clammy or slimy, but more importantly it allows mold to grow and flourish. Some amount of mold is inevitable in any building no matter how well or often it’s cleaned and sanitized, but so long as the interior is kept clean and dry, it’s not a major problem. When it starts growing to excess, however, it can release large clouds of spores into the air you breathe.
The spore cloud created by most species is harmless, aside from creating an unpleasant, musty odor, but some species produce a mycotoxin which can cause symptoms like dizziness, headaches, a runny nose, and coughing. It’s only truly dangerous to the very old and the very sick, but at the same time you shouldn’t have to deal with an annoying cold that lasts for as long as you stay in your own home.
As such, controlling mold growth is a matter of beauty, a matter of making sure your basement lasts, and a matter of keeping healthy. And one common way that professionals and amateurs alike keep mold populations down is by installing a dehumidifier in basements and crawlspaces.
If your mold problem is more complicated than that, or if it’s the result of water leakage or flood damage, contact AA Action Waterproofing today for a free estimate of your waterproofing and mold remediation project. We’ve been serving Maryland and her surrounding states for three decades, and we’ve yet to meet a mold problem we couldn’t handle.