Do you have terrible seasonal allergies at home? The problem could be excess indoor humidity. Excess humidity provides a breeding ground for all the allergens, making your seasonal allergies worse than they have to be.
Why High Humidity Matters
High humidity may be considered an open invitation to unwanted visitors. While the humidity rises in your home, it becomes a breeding ground waiting to happen for unwanted indoor allergens like dust mites, mildew, and mold. These allergens reproduce quickly under high humidity levels, especially in remote locations such as crawlspaces, and turn your home into an allergy paradise.
The Importance of Indoor Air Quality
It’s helpful to know your indoor air quality in the allergy season. Your indoor air can be up to five times more contaminated than outdoor air, regardless of how carefully you monitor pollen counts outdoors. Therefore, it’s your responsibility to manage conditions within your home for your comfort and well-being.
What to Expect Next
Continue reading to learn how humidity affects your indoor air quality and find easy solutions to make your living area healthier.
Learning About Humidity and Indoor Air Quality
Humidity is the quantity of water vapor in the air. Your indoor areas have two main measures of humidity to monitor:
Absolute Humidity: The quantity of water vapor in the air
Relative Humidity: The amount of water vapor present in the air versus its capacity at a certain temperature
The Effect of Excess Indoor Humidity
The perfect relative humidity for indoors is 30-50%. When levels reach above 60%, your indoor air quality suffers a serious blow. Excess humidity produces heavy, damp air that holds airborne particles, dust, pollen, and other small irritants in their position.
Your body reacts to indoor humidity that is too high in many uncomfortable ways. It is harder to breathe as the wet air is heavy and more difficult to breathe. You perspire more as your body tries to cool itself by sweating naturally. The humid atmosphere also interferes with normal sleep patterns, and it is more difficult to sleep well. Excess moisture also provides the perfect breeding ground for skin irritation and rashes, another way your comfort and health are affected.
The intermixing of indoor allergens in captivity and body distress triggers excessive indoor humidity as a very dangerous risk to your health and well-being. Indoor air quality has a direct impact on the way you feel and perform each day.
The Allergy Connection: How High Humidity Nourishes Indoor Allergens
High humidity provides some of the most unfavorable household allergens an opportunity to breed. At humidity above 60%, dust mites multiply and grow in vast numbers. The micro-organisms feed on dead skin cells and dispose of waste products, which induce allergic reactions in most individuals.
The Impact of Dust Mites
Dust mites are highly efficient allergen producers in damp conditions and produce a huge quantity of waste product – up to 200 times their own weight over a lifetime. Their feces are rich in airborne allergens, which can cause a range of allergic symptoms including sneezing, rhinorrhea, and respiratory symptoms in atopic individuals.
Mold and mildew love to coexist with dust mites in wet environments, putting microscopic spores into your indoor air. These hardy fungi can develop colonies on damp walls, window sills, under sinks, behind furniture, and in crawl spaces. Having these organisms is seriously bad for the health of the inhabitants.
The symptoms of allergic responses to mold exposure can be highly intense and systemic. Individuals typically develop persistent wheezing and coughing, red eyes, and itchy rashy skin that is not comfortable. Most individuals also develop very congested sinuses, so breathing normally becomes hard and performing normal activities problematic.
Your kitchen, bathroom, and basement are most susceptible to mold growth since they are always in contact with water. They require special care to prevent the growth of these allergen-causing organisms.
Dust mites and mold are a deadly pair for those with allergies. While they grow in multi-tumors in your moist indoor space, they can turn your home into an unlivable and even hazardous situation for sensitive people.
Seasonal Variation, Increasing Humidity Levels, and Their Effects on Allergy
Kansas City seasonal changes create extreme indoor humidity level variations year-round. Warm summers and spring showers create the perfect conditions for greater moisture content in your home air. The greater the temperatures rise, the greater the capacity of air to retain water vapor – this is the natural consequence and leads to increased indoor humidity, especially with warm air passing through crawl spaces and foundations of your home.
The crossing of indoor and outdoor allergens gets more and more complex at these times of the year:
Spring Allergies: Spring rain increases outdoor pollen counts and indoor humidity. When you open windows to have a breeze, pollen enters your home and blends with existing indoor allergens.
Summer allergens: Boiling, suffocating summer afternoons are perfect conditions for: ample reproduction by dust mites, uncontrollable growth of mold where there is wet air, and increased pollen from vegetation.
Domestic conditions at home replicate outside conditions. Heat makes materials utilized in the construction swell up, perhaps creating avenues for damp air. This cycle intensifies during late spring and summer when:
- Ground moisture levels increase
- Air conditioning systems work harder
- Basement and crawl space humidity rises
Knowing these seasonal patterns allows you to prepare for and expect the times when indoor air quality in your home may require additional focus. The union of outdoor allergens and indoor humidity poses special challenges for allergy patients during warm weather.
Crawl Spaces: A Hidden Source of Indoor Humidity and Allergens
Your crawl space may be hidden from view, but it is an important part of your indoor air quality. The stack effect – a natural phenomenon by which hot air rises through your house – generates a steady upward flow of air. This results in the air in your crawl space and any moisture and allergen it carries streaming up through your living areas.
If your crawl space is not encapsulated, it becomes the perfect breeding ground for all kinds of problems. Mold loves the damp and dark conditions, and pest infestation also adds to the allergen accumulation. Water seeps in through vents and foundation walls, and damp smells permeate the entire house.
Crawl Space Encapsulation
Crawl space encapsulation develops a protective shield between your home and the ground below. This advanced technology system employs heavy-duty vapor barriers to exclude ground moisture, as well as sealing all vents and openings. Adding a sound dehumidification system ensures the development of a clean, dry foundation zone.
An effectively encapsulated crawl space is your first line of defense against humidity-governed allergens. The sealed space keeps moisture from penetrating your home’s air flow system, which minimizes mold development and dust mite colonization. This better indoor air quality for your home begins from the ground level up, providing a healthier living environment for you and your loved ones.
Effective Strategies for Managing Indoor Humidity and Allergies
Your indoor comfort is based on keeping the right humidity levels – 30% to 50% if you can. As you regulate your home’s humidity, you are establishing a setting in which allergens have a hard time surviving.
Managing Indoor Humidity: Your Action Plan
Installation of a whole-house dehumidifier is necessary for full moisture management. These units connect to your current HVAC system and efficiently draw out excess moisture throughout your home, offering much broader coverage than standalone units.
Proper ventilation placement is essential in humidity control. When showering and for some time thereafter, bathroom exhaust fans must be operating to clear steam. Kitchen range hoods must be operating when cooking to expel excess moisture. Attic vents must be installed to keep moisture from building up in your home’s ceiling spaces.
Smart home maintenance forms another critical component of humidity control. Regular gutter maintenance keeps water from entering your home’s structure. Sufficient time repair of ruptured pipes avoids long-term dampness issues. Proper on-time repair of water spots on walls or ceilings avoids repeated problems.
Humidity monitoring within your home enables you to detect any issues before they become serious problems. With humidity meters placed in strategic locations throughout the house, you can monitor the moisture levels and rectify any issues early enough, ensuring the best indoor air quality.
A well-serviced ventilation system and dehumidification are an excellent shield against allergens indoors. Replacing the air filters on your HVAC system on a routine basis—is every 60-90 days—beats any advice. Additional protection can be obtained by employing HEPA filters that trap airborne particles of allergens very effectively.
Don’t overlook checking and cleaning the dehumidifier collection tank periodically to avoid making it an allergen breeding ground that you’re trying to keep out.
High Humidity Issues with Foundation Repair
The integrity of the structure of your home foundation plays a crucial role in indoor humidity and allergen control. Excessive humidity breeds a cycle: water enters into cracks in foundations, increasing indoor humidity and causing additional damage.
Common Signs of Humidity-Related Foundation Issues:
- Visible cracks in walls or floors
- Musty odors in your basement
- Warped or buckling floors
- Condensation on windows and pipes
- Peeling paint or wallpaper
Water damage from foundation issues creates perfect conditions for mold growth and allergen accumulation. These problems multiply when left unaddressed – a small crack can expand, allowing more moisture to enter your home and create larger structural concerns.
The Hidden Impact on Your Health
Compromised foundations create several concerning health issues in your home. When foundations are compromised, they can open up to hazardous radon gas in your living areas. Cracks and holes in the building become ideal points of entry for unwanted insects carrying allergens and other health threats. Water-damaged materials start emitting unhealthy particles into your indoor air, while toxic mold spores can travel throughout your home via the HVAC system.
Professional foundation repair firms are required to find and fix these points of water entry. Fixing these areas typically involves completely sealing any cracks in the foundation to prevent water intrusion. Proper drainage systems must be installed to divert water away from your home’s foundation. Basement walls must be professionally waterproofed with treatments to form a good moisture barrier. In addition, the earth surrounding your home must be properly graded so water drains away from the foundation, not against it.
A stable, well-sealed foundation is your first defense against water and moisture intrusion. By fixing problems with your foundation early on, you safeguard not only the integrity of your house’s structure but also your family’s health from allergenic materials.
Select Level Up Foundation Repair
Allergy control indoors starts with a grasp of the contribution humidity makes to your indoor air quality within the home. Your indoor climate can be controlled by monitoring humidity levels at intervals and maintaining them within the recommended range. Effective ventilation systems installed throughout the home are another significant move towards maintaining maximum air quality and restricting allergens.
Fixing foundation problems in the early stages is crucial to avoid moisture intrusion that causes high indoor humidity. This will protect your home structure as well as the health of your family members. Keeping crawl spaces clean and dry is also vital because these spaces have a gigantic contribution to the overall humidity and air quality of your home if well maintained.
Your home should be a refuge from seasonal allergies, not a source of them. When excess moisture threatens your indoor air quality and foundation integrity, we at Level Up Foundation Repair and Excavation are here to help! Our trained team is committed to crawl space encapsulation and dehumidification solutions designed to protect your home’s integrity and your family’s health.
Ready to breathe easier and protect your home?
Contact Level Up Foundation Repair and Excavation at (816) 230-0101 for a professional assessment of your home’s humidity challenges. We’ll help create a healthier indoor environment for you and your family.
