How Can You Prevent Mold from Growing in Your Home?

By Maid Brigade of Northern CT

Mold can grow anywhere, including on carpet, clothing, food, paper, and even in places you can’t see, like backside of drywall, inside walls around leaking or condensing pipes, and above ceiling tiles.

Not only is a mold problem difficult and costly to fix, but it can also produce allergens, irritants, and toxins that may compromise your health.

How can you prevent mold from growing in your home?

The best thing to do is not let it become a problem, and the key to this is moisture control.

You will want to identify problem areas in your home and correct them. You can't mold-proof your home, but you can make it mold-resistant.  

Dry wet areas immediately. Mold can't grow without moisture, so clean up wet areas right away. 

You can also prevent moisture with proper ventilation. It may be that your basic activities – like cooking, washing dishes, or showering – are encouraging the growth of mold in your home. 

If you are renovating your house or building a new one, equip it with mold-resistant products like mold-resistant drywall and mold inhibitors for paints.

In order to prevent mold, you’ll also want to monitor humidity indoors. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends keeping indoor humidity between 30 and 60 percent.

You should always direct water away from your home. If the ground around your home isn't sufficiently sloped away from the foundation, water may collect there and seep into your crawlspace or basement.

Along those same lines, you’ll need to clean or repair roof gutters. A mold problem might be a simple matter of a roof that is leaking because of full or damaged gutters.

You should also try to improve air flow in your home. According to the EPA, as temperatures drop, the air is able to hold less moisture. Without good air flow in your home, that excess moisture may appear on your walls, windows, and floors.

Keeping mold off household plants is also very important. The moist soil in indoor plants is a perfect breeding ground for mold, which may then spread to other areas of your house.

If you need help cleaning up an existing mold issue, don’t worry, Maid Brigade of Northern Connecticut can help. Give us a call at 860-645-6243 and we’ll make sure all the mold is gone.

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