Friday, January 18, 2008

A Couple of Great Ways To Reduce Mold

While you can certainly prevent mold by preventing moisture problems in your home from developing, there is an extra level of protection or two available that you can take and they will serve not only to remove mold spores from the air in the home, but also to remove other particles that can cause problems for those who have respiratory illnesses, asthma, and allergies. The answer is in the HEPA filter.

HEPA filters are a kind of filter that is put into vacuum cleaners and air purifiers that will get rid of around 97.3% of all particles in the air, including dust mites, mold spores, pet dander, and etcetera that are down to 0.3 microns in size. This is really the cleanest air that you will probably ever breathe and you can have it inside your house in both of these appliances. Smoke from cigarettes and other types of particles need to be removed from the indoor air supply because of the amount of time that people are spending in their homes and offices these days instead of outside, where air circulates much more easily. Since this is where people are spending most of their time now, the air supply needs to remain as clean as possible not only to help with breathing difficulties, but also to stop odors and mold growth from developing.

A HEPA filter in a vacuum cleaner is great because it pulls all of the particles out of your carpet that cause odors and allergic reactions and captures them in the filter, while expelling clean air back into your home.

An air purifying system that has a HEPA filter can also be purchased for a few hundred dollars or more, depending on the size of the residence you need to service. Each purifier has a certain amount of square footage of indoor space that it can filter effectively.

These are a couple of appliances that you can purchase to help stop the mold growth in your home, but the practice of preventing water leaks and humidity problems in the home should not go away just because you have purchased these. Your new HEPA filters cannot do the job alone. Another thing that you can do that involves moving air is installing exhaust vents in the humid rooms of your home like the bathroom and the kitchen. These do not expel clean air back into your house, but they do take humid and hot air out, reducing the amount of water absorbed by ceilings and upper walls.