Simple Frugal Home Design Tips to Prevent Bathroom Mold and Mildew
From Growing This Winter
Now that the cold chill of winter is here, keeping those doors and windows closed to stay cozy can cause a growing problem in your bathroom. Use these simple no cost prevention tips to prevent grout mold growth.
During the winter months when most homes keep windows and doors tightly shut to keep warmth in, this hunkering down unfortunately creates a perfect breeding ground for mold and mildew to grow in the bathroom.
Because your bathroom is one of the most moist rooms in your home, it is the room where mold is most likely to grow during the winter months. The fact that heat and moisture are frequently generated in the bathroom promotes mold growth as these factors provide great conditions for mold to grow and flourish.
Preventing mold in your bathroom is vital for your health and for the way your bathroom looks. There is nothing so unattractive to a bathroom than those ugly black lines growing in the calk around the perimeter of the tub. In addition, if neglected and due to optimal growing conditions, bathroom mold is likely to spread internally through walls, ceilings, and floors, leading to an extremely expensive remediation costs.
The trick to mold prevention is keeping your bathroom dry and airy. The best way to keep air circulating through the bathroom is a ceiling fan. Use it before, during and after your shower or bath. Then, allow it to run for an additional 10 minutes once you finish up in the bathroom.
Optimum humidity levels need to be below forty to forty five percent. If you allow adequate air circulation, your bathroom humidity levels should drop below 45 percent within 5-10 minutes from the minute you finished your shower.
Shower and Bathtub Maintenance
- Keep the bathtub, floors, walls, and ceilings, clean and dry at all times.
- If you are in an older home that does not have a ceiling fan, another effective way to prevent mildew growth is to open windows and doors right after taking a shower to allow air to free flow and remove excess moisture.
- If you didn’t install an exhaust fan yet, do so as soon as possible as this is a great tool for bathroom ventilation.
- Confirm that your fan exhausts outdoors directly.
Day to Day Maintenance
- Day to day maintenance is important to prevent water damage and mold. It will also help in detecting problems before they become a large scale disaster.
- Drains must be kept in good shape.
- Allow the bathtub to drain completely and by removing all debris and using drain openers from time to time.
- Create hard surfaces on your bathroom walls using semi-gloss paint. It is harder for mold to grow on these types of surfaces.
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