I live in Florida. Moved here a couple of years ago and I love it. I love the heat and the humidity. Currently, my abode is a 710 square foot, second-floor apartment. The only time I turn my air conditioning on is when I have company, which is sporadic.
I keep my windows closed. I’d like to have them open, but only one of three has a screen because the management company is too cheap to replace the screens blown off by the 2004 hurricane season. Yeah.
A few weeks ago, I had a bout of allergies, I wasn’t sleeping well. I figured it was poor air quality due to my dusty birds and purchased a small air purifier for my bedroom.
3 days ago, I grab a leather purse from the closet only to find it covered with mold. I blame the material and my not having used it in months and toss it (sadly…it was my favourite).
Tonight, I was cleaning up my desk and I spy my passport on the top shelf, looking suspiciously dusty. I pick it up and confirm that, yes, mold apparently wants to take a trip. I check out other items on the shelf…two photo albums and a cloth makeup bag are also spotted with mold.
I realize that musty smell that I’ve been noticing recently is not, in fact, due to my cat tossing around the dirt in my houseplants, but to mold taking over my apartment.
I call my uncle, who has lived in FL a long time. His advice is to start running the AC unit, leaving the thermostat at 80 if I prefer, surmising that the circulation will cut down the humidity. He also nixed my idea of getting a window fan to help circulation, saying it’d just draw outside humidity in.
I’ve pored over 4 pages of Dope search results on humidifiers, and I’m still unclear as to whether it would be better, financially as well as health-wise, for me to get one of those, or to just run the AC at 75-80 degrees. I’m poor! I like paying only $25 a month for electric!
If I put the AC on ‘off’ rather than cool or heat, and run the fan on constantly, will that accomplish the same thing?
Stupid mold. Just wait until tomorrow…I’m buying a giant bottle of vinegar and wiping you off the face of the earth.
AC units remove the humidity in addition to cooling the air- that’s why ACs have a drain line to get rid of the excess moisture. If you’re comfortable with no AC (seriously, where in FL do you live, it’s hot and humid as hell here!) I’d suggest running it with the thermostat set to 78-80. It’ll cool it a little, and remove some humidity. Running it on fan mode will do nothing for the excess moisture. I don’t think it’s air circulation that’s the problem.
They also make a variety of anti-mold products. My parents have a mold problem in their bedroom, due to a flat roof combined with a large shady tree over it. They have these buckets of crystals that they keep in their closet, I guess that absorb moisture to prevent mold growth. You might want to look into those as well.
Running the AC at 80 will of course mean a higher energy bill, but not a hugely expensive one. You can also set the thermostat up to 82 or even 85 when you’re not in the house, to keep it from getting too expensive but still removing some humidity.
Just an FYI, if you end up buying something in addition to the AC: You want a de-humidifier. If you buy something that’s solely a humidifier (for putting moisture into the air), it’s only going to make the problem worse.
I hope this is a typo, as what you need is a dehumidifier.
A dehumidifier can be very effective in removing moisture from the air in a room, but you must either run a hose to a drain (quite difficult in most rooms) or empty the water collector periodically. A/C units or systems are positioned so that they drain (or drip) outside. The point is you want to get the water out of the air and then out of the building.
You need to check the specs on dehumidifiers to see how many you’d need to cover the whole apartment. Running one would be cheaper than running the A/C, but buying and running 2 or 3 might not be.
A/C off will not dehumidify. “Air conditioning” = “cooling plus dehumidifying.” Running just the fan will not help.
For surfaces that can take it, bleach is probably the most effective mold-killer. Denatured alcohol also seems to help.
Yes, that was a typo. I meant a dehumidifier. (The mold! I blame the mold!)
Gary, I’ve been looking online. A 40- or 50-pint would do perfectly for my small apartment.
As for mold-killing…I swabbed my passport and one album with 70% isopropyl alcohol. Let’s see if they sprout again.
I love the dry climate just because there’s no screens on the windows and I don’t have to close the doors to keep bugs out. I do get the occasional geckos that wander in, but they soon meet the cat.
Your apartment will be hotter when you use a dehumidifier. The air conditioner dumps the heat outside, while the excess heat from a dehumidifier goes back into the room. Your using power, so the cooling will never equal the heating occurring from a dehumidifier. You will have to empty the dehumidifier frequently.
I’ve been thinking about getting a dehumidifyer. My house was built in 1934, and it’s in the damp Pacific Northwest. I haven’t seen any mildew, but the Dri-Z-Airs do remove a remarkable amount of water. And if it adds heat, then so much the better.
A dehumidifier is what to use when you need additional heat. It’s not the thing to use when you’re already too hot. Remember that hotter air can hold more moisture too.
No worries about being too hot up here! According to one website, the ‘record temperature’ was 89º in July. (I’m sure it’s been hotter, so I don’t know what they mean. Although the record wind – 82mph last November – is accurate.) More heat here in the winter is definitely a good thing. So if I can reduce the humidity a little and use the waste heat at the same time, then so much the better.
The situation might be different in Floridarrrrrrr.
I bought a 50 pint dehumidifier today and I was amazed at the amount of water it pulled in just 2 hours - something like 4 cups. It has an automatic shutoff when the desired level (I chose normal) was reached, and that was all it took. I can definitely feel the difference in the air, too.
I also did lots of cleaning today. Laundered my winter blankets, rearranged my closet to get stuff off the floor, double-checked the walls and corners for mold…all is good. I discovered that my desk, a particleboard beauty from Staples, has mold growing on the underside, where the wood is untreated. So I’ll be buying a new desk…a nice glass one.
I went out for about 5 hours, and when i came home, there was a definite improvement in the qulity of the air - no more musty smell. After my new desk arrives, I should be in the clear.
I plan to alternate moving my dehumidifier from the living room to the bedroom every few days or so. I hope that my electric bill doesn’t skyrocket.
Another tip about closets - if you have stuff on shelves, like cardboard boxes, that are shoved up against an outside wall…consider putting that stuff in plastic boxes and/or moving it away from the walls.
My closet in my midwestern home (not Florida hot and humid, but hot and humid enough) was stuffed to the gills with cardboard boxes up on shelves. The boxes would be warm from the inside and cool from the outside wall. Condensation would form and then mold. When I pulled the boxes off the shelves, the parts that touched the walls were nothing but mold.
So, give yourself some room for air circulation in the closets. Moisture + paper = mold.
FWIW I was able to clear up the problem by switching to plastic containers for my junk, leaving some space around the containers, putting up a hanging bag of DampRid, and adding a simple vent to the closet door.
I went down and bought one of those today. Your link has a local price of $189. Unfortunately they were out of stock – except for the display. I got the one on display for $20 off. It’s been running less than an hour, and already there’s water in the bucket.
I also picked up another DeLonghi oil-filled radiator heater to supplement the propane heater. I’ve found it’s cheaper to use the combination of propane and electricity to keep the house comfortable than it is to use propane alone. (I have two others: One in the little bedroom, which I don’t use but keep in case I have a guest; and one in my bedroom, which I don’t use because I have an electric blanket. But you never know.)
Good deal! Can you feel the difference in the air yet? You will soon.
I never realized how humid it really was in here. My (wooden) bedroom door was always a little hard to close. It always took an extra nudge.
Now, if I so much as breathe on it hard, it closes instantly.
I was in the kitchen an hour ago, and the air ‘smelled’ drier. It was most noticable there, rather than near the dehumidifier. The heater is on too (the lower-power switch). The wall heater is turned off. It’s quite comfortable in here. One thing I’m noticing is that my nose feels ‘dry’.
The dehumidifier is set to Normal/Auto. It shut itself off for a while, and then turned on for about five minutes. It’s sleeping now.
You might want to qualify that as ‘most AC units or systems are positioned so that they…’
I have an apartment with windows that are pretty hard to fit regular model AC units into, so I have a model that is rather like a dehumidifier with the addition of a hose that runs out to the window to force heated air out. It’s not really as effective as the other model, but it does qualifier as an AC unit I’m pretty sure.
I used to do a lot of camping for years and I have a number of plastic coolers. The large rectangular ones. I haven’t found a better storage unit than those for stuff that moisture ruins. They keep moisture out and you can stack them and they don’t collapse.
