What You Should Know About Humidity in Basements

Welcome to this week 'All Things Basmenty' Q&A

This week's question is: Why is it important to keep the humidity down in your basement?

There are a couple of reasons you will want to keep the humidity in your basement down. There is the effect it has on your building materials throughout your entire home. You also have the health effect that mold, mildew, and dust mites cause, and you have energy efficiency loss. 

Could you touch on some of the health effects you mentioned?

The main one is asthma, which is a huge health concern in a lot of people, and dust mites are the number one cause of that allergen. They start breeding at about 60% humidity, it is when they start really flourishing. So you wanna keep that humidity in your basement below that mark, to keep the dust mites inactive in your home. There are larger health concerns with mold as well, with black mold specifically. 

How does the humidity in my basement effect the energy efficiency in my home?

It's because damp air is going to be harder to cool, it is going to take more energy to heat and cool.  So cooling that hot air in the summer time, takes more energy when you have really damp thick air down there. 

Can I just buy any store dehumidifier to handle this?

Your average department store dehumidifier is only approved for about 500 square feet of space. Your average basement space is about 900 to a 1000 square feet, so really you are only covering about half of most spaces when you put only one dehumidifier in the basement to take care of the whole house.  So you are probably going to want to make sure you get a dehumidifier approved for a full basement space that you have.

How often would I have to empty my dehumidifier if I just bought a department store one? 

If it is not a self draining one, that is a problem. You want it to be a self draining dehumidifier, other wise you are going to be emptying it every five to six hours. People just don't have the time to do that, they are too busy to do that. If you are not home, that dehumidifier turns off after that five or six hours and then that humidity comes right back up and all the work you have done wouldn't matter. 

If the department store dehumidifier won't do the job, what is my next step? 

You will want to find an approved dehumidifier for the space that you have. We offer a product called SaniDry, and that does about 3000 square feet of space. So that won't only cover your basement, but also your home, unless it is a really large home.

How does the SaniDry address mold and dust mites? 

The nice thing about a SaniDry is that is not only a dehumidifier, but it is also an air purifier. It has a filter on top that is going to filter out everything as small as dust mites, mold and mildew particles. All that is filtered out through our filtered profess into the Sai. 

Be on the lookout for more answers to your upcoming basement questions!