Mold grows in my 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 scrub my shower with bleach every other day.
There was a mildew odor coming back within hours of every shower, even if it followed an intense cleaning session moments before I started shampooing my hair.
I went through so much bleach cleaner in one month that I started developing allergy problems with the chlorine smell in my house. I talked to people at the local hardware store, but few had any definite ideas on how to fix the issue. It took a friend of mine who works in residential HVAC to pose a possible explanation for my problem. He asked me what the air flow is like to my bathroom from my central air conditioner. When I told him that there is no HVAC vent in my 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 certain 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 my bathroom. To my amazement, it dropped the humidity level from 70% to 45%. I took a shower later the same day and 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 air conditioner, 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 my electric bill to cover the cost of running a dehumidifier, it’s worth it to keep a sanitary bathroom.