Mould in Your Flat Presents a Great Risk for Your Health. How to Deal With It?

Mould is a fungus and, as typical in these tiny organisms, you may observe it growing in humid corners despite your careful regular cleaning and maintenance of your house. As you might already know, it can cause a lot of damage to the walls and furniture, but worse than that, it can cause breathing and skin problems if you are in contact with it regularly. For these reasons, you should be mindful and try to prevent mould appearing in your house in the first place.

To help you achieve that, we will share with you some daily actions you can take to deal with this problem and truly feel at home in your apartment or house!

Ventilate All Rooms Regularly

The first action is to ventilate the rooms regularly. A different approach should be taken with respect to the current season and weather.  

In summer and warm spring and autumn months, you can provide steady air circulation in the room by micro-ventilation, in other words, keep the window open partially with a small gap.  

During the summer, have your windows open as much as the weather allows to create a draught to expel moisture from the apartment. In case you have rooms without windows (e.g. bathrooms, kitchens, or cellars), it should be equipped with a ventilation system and you should use it frequently. 

During the winter, it is recommended not to use the micro ventilation, because that would cause high consumption of heating and subsequent high costs on energies to pay. Instead, it is advised to vent your rooms several times per day by opening windows wide for a short time, let the air exchange, and close the window again to keep the warmth in. 

“I recommend the so-called method of thermal shocks – the room is closed and heated to a high temperature and then ventilated quickly. The same step should always be repeated after five or six days,” advises Michael Balík, an expert on the matter.

Avoid to Create Any More Humidity

As mentioned before, these tiny organisms are more susceptible to grow in humid environments. During our daily actions such as showering, cooking, washing or even drying clothes, humidity in the apartment increases. It happens because when the air doesn’t flow in the rooms, the vapour condenses, seeping in on the walls and furniture. To prevent that, you should open the windows to ventilate it. Another option is to turn on a fan, ventilation system, or extractor hood during such activities.

A curious fact, that you may not know, is that houseplants increase indoor humidity through a process known as transpiration. So, if you have a problem with moisture and a lot of plants inside your house, removing some of them may be worth trying.

Get Some Helpers

If ventilation and heating don’t help, humidity persists and mould still appears in your home, you should look for some helpers. As the first option, you can use some chemical antifungal agents, possible to find in drugstores or hobby markets. However, you have to be careful while using this method. Do not try to remove the mould before using such products, because its spores could spread in the air, triggering respiratory and skin irritations. Another option is the use of moisture absorbers with tablets or bags, which suck water from the air, and then it drips into a tank. You can also use an electric dehumidifier.

“They suck in the moist air, which then flows through the cooler, where it cools down to the dew point temperature, so it loses the ability to hold water and, consequently, the condensed water drips into a gathering container. The dry air then returns to the room and binds water to itself,” explains Bořivoj Fučík from a company that sells dehumidifiers.

It could be the most expensive choice, but certainly will be the most efficient, too. If you have humidity problems at your house, keep this option in mind.

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Content source: https://www.idnes.cz/bydleni/stavba/do-boje-s-plisni-se-sami-nepoustejte-utratite-penize-a-stejne-si-nepomuzete.A101014_175656_stavba_web