How to get rid of dampness in an apartment: causes of high humidity. Decrease in air humidity

People have long noticed that there are rooms in which a person feels worse than usual. Some people notice that they feel uneasy when they come to visit, they move to new apartment. Often the air we are forced to breathe is to blame for the deterioration of our health. If you notice that there is high humidity in your apartment, or fungus has appeared on the walls, it’s time to think about how to remove moisture from the apartment. After all, the “wrong” microclimate at home causes a number of unpleasant symptoms - nasal congestion, insomnia, sneezing, general weakness, joint pain.

Standard humidity in housing

In a living room, the optimal humidity is 60%. This indicator can be measured using a hygrometer. Air humidity can be reduced to 45% in the summer months. Has an effect on the human body Negative influence both excessively dry and too humid air. Those who like to turn on the air conditioner should be especially careful. This device has the ability to “take” water from the room and reduce the humidity level in the room.

If you dry clothes in the house and do not ventilate the apartment well, the air can be very humid. High humidity provokes the formation of fungus.

Why do you need to reduce humidity in your apartment?

Once in the human lungs, mold contributes to the development of allergic rhinitis and bronchial asthma. If a person often stays in conditions high humidity air, it is quite possible that he will experience migraines, runny nose more often, and the functioning of the cardiovascular system will be disrupted.

Lifestyle modern man helps to ensure that the level of humidity in his home is increased. If people used to take a bath about once a week, today they shower twice a day, wash clothes often, etc.

Sources of humidity in the apartment:

• Human breathing through the surface of the skin and lungs;
• Taking a bath or shower;
• Washing and drying clothes;
• Plants, aquariums;
• Cooking food;
• External atmosphere;
• Excess groundwater;

How to reduce humidity in an apartment?

In a family of three, the volume of half a bathtub goes into the air every week. This is about 70-100 liters.

Moisture is a major factor for mold formation. To successfully combat this, you need to find out the cause of the humidity.

Find the cause and eliminate it

If the humidity in your home is a temporary phenomenon that occurs, for example, when you cook food, it can be eliminated by ventilating the room or using heating devices. Your main task is to thoroughly ventilate the room. If moisture is concentrated on the walls, air flow must be significant. Set up a draft for a few hours, or even better, for a few days.

If your room is short sunlight and heat, this can also cause increased humidity. To reduce the humidity in a room, you need to use heating devices that can heat the entire room.

In addition, the cause of high humidity in the apartment can be the deplorable condition of the ceiling. Drying this part of the room is a rather complicated process. You can simply plaster the room additionally. It is better to wait for the plaster to dry completely without furniture. It absorbs moisture and then begins to release it, which can cause another increase in humidity.

Hermetically sealed closed windows(eg PVC) often cause additional moisture. After all, in many apartments they become a barrier between the street and the room. It is better to immediately order frames with a well-thought-out ventilation system.

You need to remember how to reduce humidity in an apartment at the stage repair work. All plastering compounds contain water, so it is very important to dry the area thoroughly. This way you can prevent condensation from forming.

You can reduce the humidity in your apartment using modern chemicals. For example, Henkel has developed a new product that helps in the fight against excess moisture called “Stop Moisture”. This is a system that includes an absorber and an absorbent. Active crystals fight the formation of excess moisture. Moisture is collected in special containers.

Cellar owners often complain about the humidity in them. Usually this problem is associated with violations committed during construction. How to reduce humidity in the cellar is a question that worries many Russians who store their vegetables in cellars and basements.

Excessive humidity often appears in basements and cellars. If you don’t start taking measures to eliminate it in time, fungus will appear, and then mold.

For obvious reasons, moisture and dampness are unacceptable in cellars and basements. In a room with humid air, mold and mildew appear. It is impossible to store vegetables in such a basement, and if the damp room is in ground floor, this may negatively affect the integrity of the entire structure.

One of the reasons for humidity and dampness is moisture penetrating into the room through the walls and subsequently accumulating on the floor. During its evaporation, air humidity increases many times over.

If the cellar or basement is located in a private house, the cause of dampness may be insufficient insulation of the building. At low temperatures, water penetrates into the basement through the joints in the walls of the house.

Groundwater may also be the cause of the increase. This is possible if the floor waterproofing is unsatisfactory.

Moisture removal methods

Reduce humidity in basement Can different ways. But first, check the condition of the basement waterproofing. If it does not cope with the task, then it needs to be remade. This is often not a very cheap option.

The most inexpensive way in which moisture in the cellar can be removed is as follows:

• purchase plastic film, you can use the old one, the main thing is that it is intact. You will also need a shovel, trowel and clay. If the floor of your cellar is clay, then use it;
• remove a 5 cm layer of clay floor, level and compact the resulting surface. Carefully lay two layers of polyethylene on top of it. Pour a layer of clay on it and tamp it down thoroughly. This must be done carefully so that the film layer does not move. The clay will begin to dry out and the air in the cellar will become drier. Instead of a clay floor, you can make it out of concrete.

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Additional Causes of Humidity

1. Moisture often appears in cellars during the snow melting season and after precipitation. Place a layer of sand at the bottom of the cellar and 10 cm of fine gravel on top. The dampness should disappear. If this does not happen within a year, then make the gravel layer thicker by another 10 cm. Ground water will fall to a lower level, and from there will no longer be able to rise to the level of the basement or cellar floor.
2. The humidity in the basement is significantly affected by condensation that appears on the walls. You can combat it using special waterproofing plaster. Plaster the basement walls with it and they will begin to breathe. The condensation will disappear along with the dampness. Ready-made waterproofing mixtures are sold in stores. You can cook it yourself. Add a waterproofing additive to dry plaster.
3. Use a special solution to remove fungus and mold from the walls and apply plaster to the wall.
4. Moisture in cellars appears where they have thin and cold floors. Make a double floor, in the middle of which lay a layer of roofing material. Air humidity will decrease.
5. You can combat moisture in the basement with the help of potassium chloride, which quickly absorbs excess moisture. Pour the powder of this substance into jars and place it in the corners of the cellar. This method works well if you have a small cellar.

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What to do if nothing helps

If all these simple ways cannot reduce the humidity in the cellar, then additional waterproofing must be created.

1. You start with waterproofing the floor. Cover it with several layers of bitumen. Heat it with a hair dryer and lay two layers of roofing material on top. Instead, you can lay waterproofing; it is not subject to rot and is resistant to mold.
2. At the second stage of waterproofing, build additional half-brick walls. Install a waterproofing layer between them. On top of the cellar you make concrete screed at 10 cm.

Has moisture started to appear on the floors and walls in the basement? What needs to be done to make it dry and suitable for storing vegetables?

1. The first thing you need to do is to regularly ventilate the basement by opening it every day. Check ventilation.
2. If moisture appears on the walls and floor in the basement in the spring, they need to be repaired. Make a screed on the floor using waterproof cement. Carefully inspect the walls, if there are cracks on them, repair them, and then plaster the walls.
3. If possible, dig out the outside of the basement walls. Fill any cracks found cement mortar. Cover the walls with a layer of bitumen or roofing felt, this will enhance the waterproofing of the basement. You can make a clay castle around its perimeter. Place clay in the trench around the basement in 20 cm layers, tamping thoroughly. Such a lock will completely block the flow of groundwater and rainwater to the basement walls.
4. Additionally, along the outer perimeter of the basement, in a trench dug to the depth of the foundation, you can lay drainage pipes, through which water will be drained to drain hole or septic tank.

Is groundwater flooding the basement floor? Dig a pit below the basement floor level. Make a gravel cushion in it and place a container on it with holes drilled in the side walls.

The container must be wrapped in a cloth that allows water to pass through well; it will prevent the holes in the container from silting up. Place a pump with a float in it. Water fills the container, the float rises and turns on the pump. The water is pumped out, the float is lowered, and the pump is turned off. This device will allow you to effectively deal with water and humidity in the basement.

In a living room, 60% humidity is considered optimal. A decrease in air humidity is allowed in the summer months to 45%. According to experts, you can easily measure the humidity level in your home using a special device - a hygrometer.

Excess humidity in the room must be combated, since it provokes not only the appearance of condensation on window glass, but also creates a beneficial environment for the proliferation of fungal spores, mold, and pathogens.

The development of mold fungi indoors has a detrimental effect on the human body; their spores can cause allergic reactions, headaches, shortness of breath, cough, skin inflammation, itching. Some types of mushrooms have carcinogenic properties and increase the risk of developing cancer.

If you are interested in Canadian house price, then take care to normalize the humidity in your home. Excess moisture causes furniture, wall and ceiling coverings to become unusable, and the shelf life of food products is significantly reduced.

How to reduce air humidity in your home

1. After cooking, taking a shower or bath, or hand washing, steam accumulates, so it is important to ventilate these areas immediately to avoid excess humidity. Installing a hood is necessary if moisture appears from the shower cabin or gas stove with regular evaporation.

2. Drying clothes in the house is extremely undesirable. It's better to do it on outdoors or in a spare room with closed door and an open window.

3. To bring the air humidity in the house back to normal, on sunny days do not curtain the windows in damp rooms, let the rays of the sun dry them.

4. During dry hot summers and frosty winter weather, the air outside is dry. Simple ventilation will help reduce humidity in the room.

5. There is a special device - a moisture absorber, which contains an absorbent substance that absorbs excess moisture from the air, like a sponge.

6. Plastic windows - common reason high humidity in the room. Hermetically sealed windows are a barrier to air exchange between the interior of the building and the street. To avoid this, when choosing PVC profile windows, it is better to purchase frames with a built-in ventilation system.

7. Excess moisture in the room is removed by household heaters, hair dryers and candles, houseplants. Ventilation in good condition is also a good help in solving the problem of high humidity.

8. An effective way to reduce indoor air humidity is air conditioning. In addition to cooling or heating them additional functions are air purification and dehumidification.

9. Faulty plumbing increases the overall humidity in the air, so you should replace outdated parts or repair areas where there are leaks.

10. Decorating walls with natural building materials - wood and plasterboard - helps reduce humidity. Drywall has the ability to absorb excess moisture and accumulate it, and, if necessary, evaporate. So this construction material is an excellent microclimate regulator in the house.

For a comfortable stay in the house it is very important to create correct microclimate. To do this, you must adhere to the above rules and recommendations and choose high-quality equipment to create the necessary atmosphere for living.

Prepared by Maryana Chornovil

Excessive humidity can cause many diseases, such as allergies, bronchial asthma and rhinitis. Also, excess humidity destructive to your apartment, it can cause mold and mildew to appear on the walls, especially in corners where air movement is reduced.

How to reduce humidity in an apartment and create a comfortable and favorable climate?

1. You can reduce the humidity in the apartment using systematic ventilation and heating. If you live in a private house, heat it as often as possible without closing the chimneys and doors until the fuel burns well. The apartment can be warmed up using radiators and heaters; this way you will have to pay a good amount for electricity, but this way you can avoid the appearance of fungus on the walls and various diseases.

2. High humidity is not a very normal phenomenon in an apartment. It can appear if you have an aquarium, if water is constantly boiling in the kitchen and there is a large number of flowers, which also evaporate moisture. But most likely, increased humidity is a consequence of a malfunction or violation of the hood. This is especially possible if the house is quite old. Therefore, it is worth contacting the house management so that specialists can eliminate this problem. If the house is relatively new, perhaps one of the neighbors has remodeled and damaged the design of the fume hood by crashing a refrigerator or other object into it.

3. Today in specialized stores you can purchase climate control equipment that absorbs excess humidity in the apartment. These are so-called air dehumidifiers, the principle of which is based on the fact that when air comes into contact with a cold surface, moisture begins to condense and flows into a pan, where it is subsequently heated and supplied to the room. You can install a window air conditioner with a split system, but this has one drawback - increased noise.

To live comfortably in an apartment or house, a healthy microclimate is necessary. It directly depends on humidity indicators. If they are too low or high, this will lead to a number of problems. Especially often, apartment residents and owners of premises (commercial, warehouse or other) are faced with increased air humidity. As a result, the walls become covered with mold, which spoils even durable materials.

Also excess moisture causes condensation to form on the ceiling. Appears in the house bad smell, various microbes multiply. They, in turn, can cause allergic reactions in people indoors. Reducing humidity must be taken seriously, because ignoring this indicator will affect people's health and the condition of the home. We will discuss below how you can reduce indoor humidity.

First you need to find out the reason for the appearance of excess moisture. It can be rooted both inside the house and depend on home conditions, and outside, and is a consequence of street temperature and humidity indicators. The most common internal causes of high humidity are:

• Poorly organized ventilation - if the owner of the house installed it himself, it is recommended to call a technician to check the correct connection and operation of the equipment.
• Frequent drying of washed clothes - in some apartments with old layouts, the bathroom is not separated from the kitchen. In such cases, dampness from things spreads throughout all rooms. But even if the bath is located separately, some apartment owners often leave the door to the bathroom open. And again the moisture evaporates beyond the boundaries of one room.
• Location of windows on north side– less sun penetrates into the room and, as a result, the humidity of the microclimate increases.
• The presence of an aquarium - water evaporates from it, absorbing into the walls and ceiling of the house.
• A large number of residents - do not forget that moisture evaporates when people breathe. If there are a lot of them in the apartment, and the room itself is small, there is a high probability of microclimate failure.

There are also external conditions, affecting the level of humidity in the room. Among them it is worth noting:

• Climatic features of the region - in some cities there is high humidity all year round.
• During rain, snowfall and thaw, there is a general increase in moisture content in the air.
• An important point is the presence of salt in the concrete - if the house was built in winter, then there is a possibility that the builders added salt to the concrete. This method is used to increase the strength of the material. However, salt has a big drawback - it makes the walls damp. This goes away over the years, but the first 3-5 years of high humidity cannot be avoided.
• Errors during construction - these include poor-quality waterproofing of walls from the foundation and a flimsy, often leaking roof. It is almost impossible to correct such defects, since flaws were made during the construction of the building. You can only mitigate the problem by selecting additional equipment for dehumidifying the air.