Turning the Heat on in winter will show you the actual air quality of your Basement

How would turning the heat on upstairs have anything to do with the air quality of basement? It’s an interesting concept, but it’s one that many air quality experts, including Craig Clark from Ocean State Air in Rhode Island, deals with every winter.

We all know that the condition of the basement affects the air quality in the rest of the home. Lingering water, moisture and water damage, mold or other pollutants in the basement can influence the quality of the air and aggravate sensitivities in the homeowners.

Moisture problems that go unchecked in the summer don’t feel as serious in the winter. The cold air, for the most part, masks the issues in the basement. Humidity and excess moisture build up are as tangible in the winter as they are in the summer months that are naturally humid.

This becomes the combination to cause issues.

Turning on the heat forces warm air through your home, and in many cases your basement as well. This can awaken any unaddressed moisture issues again in the winter. With warm moist air now back again in the basement during winter, people with respiratory issues can be affected again when they least expect it.

“It’s not uncommon for an entire house to get sick because of poor air quality issues in the winter that could have been avoided by addressing them in the summer,” says Craig Clark, president of Ocean State Air in Rhode Island.

“Correcting an air quality issue in the home can avoid complications in months where normally there isn’t a problem.

“If you maintain the Relative Humidity, you can control the dew point and prevent the mold growth on cold surface areas.

“When homeowners turn the heating system on for the first time with mold contamination inside the HVAC system, the dried up mold becomes aerolized and can cause substantial discomfort to persons with mold allergies. A non-viable mold spore or mold fragment can cause as much discomfort as a viable spore or fragment.”

The World Heath Organization back in August finally announced its findings about increased illness in buildings with air quality issues. Occupants of a building with moisture issues are 70% more likely to become ill than occupants of buildings with proper air quality.


Like always, make sure to have your home inspected to make sure that you don’t have moisture or a mold issue. With this new pattern in New England it might be a good idea to have an inspection before cranking the heat this winter.




Read about the Top 6 Basement Mistakes that contractors and homeowners make.

Basement Mistakes pt 1– Thinking that a smelly basement is okay.

One of the most common misconceptions about the basement, and this even reaches into my childhood, is that the basement has a “smell” and that all basements have that same “smell.”

Seeing as many of your neighbors’ basements smell similar, it’s turned into a social norm that all basements have a musty or damp odor to them. Not only is this considered normal it is now also considered “expected.” This however, is not the reality, and many homeowners, new and old, have had a hard time recently getting their heads around why this shouldn’t be considered acceptable.

Odors and smells originate from processes, in this case the damp or musty odors are originating from moisture in the air. When moisture in the air is at a normal level, you typically don’t smell anything, heck, there’s moisture in the air all the time and you can’t smell it.

So why do you smell it in the basement and not some other part of your home?

You smell it all the time in your bathroom after a shower, or in the kitchen after cooking a pasta dish; extra moisture in the air is the cause of the musty smell in the basement air. One problem with the basement is that this moisture can collect and linger, which makes these smells worse. The other is that the basement is constantly subjected to inward migration of moisture through the foundation walls and floors. The basement will never stop getting moisture and airflow from the soil around your foundation.

By not addressing these smells you are basically letting moisture sit in your basement or you're allowing for the cause of the moisture in the basement go unchecked. This can lead to a few things that are much larger problems:

1.) Mold and Mildew – they both need a cool, dark, and damp place to live. Excess moisture makes it easier for mold to grow and spread in the basement. Even in small amounts mold and mildew can cause serious health problems and can potentially damage property (finished walls, carpets, clothes, etc.).

2.) Ruined Insulation – Even if a small amount of moisture accumulates in your insulation, up to 95% of it’s R-Value can be rendered useless.

3.) Damp Finished walls – Sagging ceilings, warped floors and other damage can drastically affect the mood and feel of a finished space.

4.) Unusable space – High enough moisture and humidity levels in a basement can really make the space unpleasant to be in.

5.) Damaged property – TVs, Electronics, and leather couches are all very temperature and moisture sensitive. If you’re placing any of these things in the finished space of your basement, and you still have a smell/odor caused by a moisture issue, you could be throwing money out the window.

6.) Unaddressed leak or flooding potential – Sometimes the moisture is a key indicator that there is an active leak or history with flooding and water. Repairing cracks, addressing leaks, and installing moisture control can help to solve these issues.

Thinking that the smell in the basement is “okay” or “normal” is one of the Top 6 Most Common Basement Mistakes that homeowners and builders make. The good news is that the mind set is changing in homeowners and many are becoming more home health conscious which is forcing them to look at their basement for potential problems.

picture thanks to http://www.arborteas.com/

WHO concludes that excess home moisture can lead to increased levels of illness in homes.

Over the past two months Indoor Environment Connections (ieconnections.com) has reported directly on a release by the World Health Organization of conclusive data relating to a direct correlation between increased levels of home moisture and illness in the occupants of the home.


Both in August and September, the newsletter of ieconnections.com has made direct quotes from this release of the WHO, which finally concludes on a theory that many indoor air quality experts, basement waterproofing, and HVAC companies have had for the better part of 30 years.

The publication states that occupants of buildings with high moisture content are 75% likelier to become ill then the occupants of buildings with better indoor air quality. This figure isn’t astonishing to the companies and professionals in the field, however, for many home and building owners it’s helping to motivate them to change their Indoor Air Quality conditions.

In September the WHO announced it’s official guide lines to help building owners and homeowners get a better handle on the ways they can better their individual air quality.

http://www.euro.who.int/document/E92645.pdf


The next logical step.
Many basement waterproofing companies, including the entire contractor network of Grate Products, has believed that the upward migration of air from the basement to the rest of the home plays a huge part in this. More than 40-50% of the air you breathe on the first floor has been linked directly to the basement or crawl space holding up the home, so one would think that if to completely control the moisture levels of the home, one would have to also control them in the basement.

“I’ve been saying this for the better part of the last 20 years,” says Steve Andras, President of Grate Products LLC, “If people want to truly control the moisture content in their homes, get control of the odors, must, and dampness in their air, then they need to look at the basement.”

Multiple methods of basement waterproofing and moisture control have been installed over the past hundred years, but it’s only with the most recent technology that homeowners have a better chance of actually getting close to 100% control over the moisture in their basements.

The WHO hasn’t made a distinctive point about the best methods to repair, but have made arguments for why a household should manage the moisture content of their home. On page 36 section 3.2 of their guide they also discuss the various methods that water does infiltrate the space.

On page 61 the WHO makes some basic recommendations about how to limit the amount of moisture with basic instructions.

Having some distinctive differences between this list and some of the Building Science’s findings, it will be interesting to see how the guide evolves in the future.