Bathroom Fans: What Might Lurk in Your Bathroom without One

When summers are warm and you need to keep your home’s air purified for optimal health, air conditioning in St. Paul, MN, is not the only thing you need to consider. In fact, many older homes have a hidden danger lurking in one of the smallest rooms that you frequent on a daily basis: your bathroom. If your bathroom does not have a fan, this creates a perfect situation for a dangerous condition that can not only impact the air you breathe but your walls and belongings as well.

A Moldy Situation

Mold is a fungus that does not need light to grow like plants. In fact, darker, moist environments are optimal for mold growth. To grow, mold needs four things: the presence of mold spores, food, warmth, and moisture.

Mold spores are literally everywhere. Removing all mold spores from your environment is simply not feasible. This in and of itself is not a problem, though. The problem begins when those mold spores begin to populate an area of your home and their numbers become overwhelming.

Mold can feed on any organic substance if the right temperature and proper amount of moisture is available. This means wood, paper, and organic fiber much like all homes contain. Removing all food sources for mold is also an impossibility.

The temperature at which mold grows is quite variable. Cleaning out your refrigerator and finding moldy, forgotten food shows you that mold will survive even cold temperatures. Mold can likewise thrive in warm climates, so unfortunately this means keeping mold at bay is not possible through temperature control.

Controlling the overgrowth of mold requires the control of the final environmental aspect that mold needs to survive—moisture in the air. Air-conditioning helps to keep your home at a comfortable humidity level that helps to thwart the efforts of mold to spawn, except that in the bathroom. We tend to sabotage our bathrooms with warm showers that add considerable humidity to the air that your air conditioner cannot keep up with in the absence of a bathroom fan.

Dangers of Mold

A mold overgrowth in your home is not only unsightly; it can cause health issues as well. In fact, if mold covers a very large portion of your home, you should call a mold remediation company to clean it up in order to prevent the mold from spreading to other areas of your home and to prevent becoming seriously ill from the cleanup process.

Because mold spores are airborne, an overgrowth on your walls that you can see means that you are breathing in the mold as well. This means respiratory symptoms, including asthma. Mold exposure can cause symptoms as mild as seasonal allergies and as serious as flu-like symptoms. Other symptoms include depression, fatigue, and increased susceptibility to other illnesses. Simply put, mold is not something to mess around with!

Bathroom Fans to the Rescue

While it is true that the unventilated bathroom will grow mold due to the high levels of humidity present, a bathroom fan is the key to prevention. A fan can help circulate the air and keep the humidity level low enough to prevent mold from growing.