Mold grows in our bathrooms if I don’t keep the indoor air dry enough
I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why I had to clean our shower with bleach every other day.
There was a mildew smell coming back within minutes of every shower, even if it followed an intense cleaning session moments before I started shampooing our hair.
I went through so much bleach cleaner in one month that I started developing flu symptom issues with the chlorine smell in our house. I talked to people at the local hardware store, however few had any definite ideas on how to repair the issue. It took a associate of mine who works in residential HVAC to pose a possible explanation for our problem. He asked me what the air flow is love to our bathroom from our central a/c system. When I told him that there is no HVAC vent in our bathroom, only a roof ventilation fan, he told me to get a small dehumidifier for the bathroom. With only minimal air flow coming in through the open doorway, it wasn’t enough to keep the bathroom dry. If an indoor space sustains a particular level of moisture, mildew growth is almost unavoidable. At the same time, I was skeptical that a small dehumidifier would make much of a difference on the air quality in our bathroom. To our amazement, it dropped the humidity level from 68% to 45%. I took a shower later the same day as well as was astonished with how good the bathroom smelled while I was toweling off. If I can’t get constant flow of conditioned air coming from the central a/c system, at least I can dry out the bathroom to achieve much of the same effect. I don’t mind if I have to pay more on our electric bill to cover the cost of running a dehumidifier, it’s worth it to keep a sanitary bathroom.