Keep Your Air Pathogen Free: How To Prevent Mold in Air Ducts
Mold in an air duct system is more common than you think, yet this problem can be avoided with the right know-how. Here’s how to prevent mold in air ducts…
There is always mold around us in the air and on surfaces, but if mold is abundant in your home, it has the potential to cause serious health problems. Dirty air leads to millions of deaths per year.
Those statistics are scary, but they’re also easily preventable in your home. Make sure your air is clean and safe to breathe by preventing mold in the air ducts in your home.
How to Prevent Mold in Air Ducts
If you’re worried about the mold building up in air ducts in your house, you’re not the only one. Mold in air ducts is actually a fairly common problem, and you can avoid it by being aware of these tips.
Keep it Clean
The most seemingly obvious way to prevent mold in your air ducts is to keep the HVAC ducts clean. When your ducts go a long time without being cleaned, mold can begin to build up and impact your home’s air quality for the worse. When it comes to cleaning your ducts, you should trust a professional with the job. You can also get an air purification system that will allow you to have your system cleaned less frequently.
Move your Furniture
To keep your house dry, be strategic about the furniture placement in your home. If any of your furniture is blocking the air vents in your house, you could be unwittingly inviting mold into your home.
A blockage on your air vents can cause your house to become damper, which will make mold begin to grow. Make sure you’re positioning your furniture so that you aren’t causing unsafe air conditions.
Dry it Out
The humidity levels inside your home should be anywhere from 35 to 50 percent at any given time to make it the safest it can be. To get your home where it needs to be, consider using a dehumidifier as this will help keep the level of moisture in the air balanced. If the humidity in your home goes above 70 percent, you are potentially at risk of growing mold that could be toxic when you breathe it in.
Get the Right HVAC System
HVAC systems that are particularly large can be the culprit of unwanted humidity in your home. Ask a professional to size your HVAC system in a way that’s appropriate for your living space. Getting an appropriately sized system can save you a lot of trouble down the road if you have to go through the process of removing mold from your home.
Fix Those Leaks
If your HVAC system doesn’t drain properly, you will need to get a technician to come to fix the damage. They can properly seal off the pipes and ducts to make sure that the mold doesn’t spread to the rest of the system while they’re working on it.
Go Above and Beyond
It’s important to make sure you’ve eliminated the excess mold in your air ducts. Fight off that fungi by doing a whole house check.
Survey the Area
- Check for areas in your home that are not as dry as others such as the kitchen, bathrooms and laundry room. Areas that are frequently damp are much more susceptible to getting moldy than other areas.
- One tip for checking if your home may have a hidden leaky pipe is to look at your your water bills to see if there are discrepancies that don’t make sense from month to month. A leaky pipe could be causing mold to build up in your home.
- It’s also important to check any plants in your home for mold. The soil in the plants is the perfect place for mold to grow, especially if they are plants that need to be watered frequently and are often damp. You don’t have to get rid of your plants, but you can add oils that help to inhibit the growth of plants. Getting plants like cacti that don’t require very much water can also be a good idea if you’re worried that your plants are inviting too much moisture into your home.
- Do a walkthrough of your home as a kind of self-audit to see if there are easily identifiable problems that you can fix. Is the basement somewhere you might need to be concerned about? Have you found any water stains?
- Windows can also point to signs of mold growth. If there’s an unusual amount of condensation on any of your windows, it could mean that mold is spreading in that area.
- Checking the gutters on the outside of your home to see that they are draining properly is also essential to stop the mold growth outdoors as well.
Get Back on Track
If you discover mold in your home that needs to be removed, let Blackmon Mooring & BMS CAT help.
They can repair water damage or remediate mold that you’ve experienced in your home and give you clean air once again. It’s essential to call in experts within the first 24-48 hours after water damage occurs to help prevent excess mold from forming.
Trust the professionals. The mold removal services from Blackmon Mooring & BMS CAT includes both commercial and residential remediation, black mold remediation, drying, dehumidification and HVAC decontamination.