It seems like no matter what season we are in, the humidity in my basement is just too high to stay down there for any extended period of time.
I made the mistake of storing a lot of old paperback books down there from February until October one year. I thought the plastic tubs that I put them in would keep them dry and free of moisture, but that was a horrible assumption to make. In truth, the mold growth on the books was so severe that I took the tubs and put them straight in the garbage. The problem had affected every book, making those tubs a major health threat to any exposed to the mold. This situation is frustrating because you feel trapped—you have all of this extra space downstairs in your basement, but you have no way of utilizing it. I thought that I’d find no simple solution to these issues, but then a close family member told me to look at dehumidifiers. He explained how I could get a 70-pint capacity dehumidifier at Walmart for roughly $230. It wasn’t cheap, but the machine was rated to take that amount of water out of the air down there in the course of just 24 hours. This was drastic on paper alone, but in practice it was a much larger difference than I could have ever expected. It went from 80% humidity down there to 50% after a few days of running it continuously. Since I have a floor drain down there, I can run a hose out the back into the drain, meaning I never have to empty out the water collection bucket inside the machine. I can let it run non-stop, even if I’m not at home. For $230, I couldn’t ask for more.
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