When you live in a location that is quite humid, you need to be aware of some common issues that might need to be addressed all year long. Making sure that you and your family are healthy can be linked with your management of the humid conditions impacting your home. Things like mold can make your home unlivable, and you need to be sure that these issues do not impact you.

What Are Some Risks Associated With Humid Environments

1.       Mold Can Affect Your Home if You Live in a Humid Environment

This is the biggest concern that might impact your home if you live in a humid place. Mold can make its way into all kinds of spaces in your home, from the walls to the flooring, to the window and door frames. Mold can be very bad for your health, and some kinds of molds can be so hard to eradicate that you might have to replace your flooring and wall materials in order to get the mold out of your home.

Things like black mold have been associated with everything from respiratory issues to death. You want to avoid mold at all costs, which means that you need to know what to look for to catch possible mold issues before they progress too far.

2.       Humid Air Might Lead to an Unpleasant Environment in Your House

Humidity in the air can lead to an oppressive environment in your home, and it can make things like towels, furniture, and bedding feel sticky and wet. Humidity inside the home can also lead to issues with controlling the temperature in the home. When the air is too humid, it can make it hard to get rid of excess heat, and it can also make it tough to keep your home warm.

Humidity in the air can be good to a point, but when it is too much, your home can feel pretty sticky and yucky every day.

3.       Humidity Can Damage Your Home’s Surfaces and Materials

Humidity can damage all kinds of surfaces in your home. You might have to deal with peeling paint, dry rot, and issues with the siding and the insulation in your home when you live in a humid climate. Keeping the right amount of humidity present inside your home and making sure that the surfaces on its exterior are watertight can help manage these possible issues with ease.

However, if the humidity inside your home goes unchecked, you could have trouble with paint, wall surfaces, and support structures in short order.

What Can I Do to Manage Humidity Better And Take Care of a Home?

If you live in a humid climate, you will not be able to change the environment around your home, but you can manage some of the impact of the humid environment on a daily basis.

·         Dehumidifiers Can Have a Significant Impact on Humidity Levels in Your House

Dehumidifiers can make a huge impact on the humidity inside your home. These kinds of solutions can help to absorb and remove the humidity from the environment in your home. This keeps surfaces from absorbing moisture, and it helps to prevent bad smells and issues with mold.

Dehumidifiers can be machines that draw moisture from the air, or they can be containers of substances that wick the moisture up from the air. There are various ways to keep the humidity under control within your home, and dehumidifiers are one of the most effective ways of controlling the potential for unhealthy living conditions and damage to the interior of your home.

·         Improve Drainage Around Your Home to Manage humidity

You can help to manage the humidity in and around your home by making sure that your drainage is excellent. Allowing standing water near your home or in your yard can make the moisture in the air exponentially greater than if these issues are not present. When there is standing water on your property, the foundation of your home could be at risk, and moisture could leach up the walls.

When the drainage around your home is not working right, your home can be undermined just because of the added moisture in the air and surrounding the foundation of your home. It is very unwise to ignore drainage issues for too long because they will eventually cause major damage to your home.

·         Use the Fans in Your Home to Decrease Humidity Impacts

When you wash clothes, take a shower or a bath, or work in the kitchen, you need to make sure that you use the fans that were installed in your home to remove humidity and moisture from the air. If you do not use these fans, you will allow moisture to remain in the room for hours. This can lead to peeling paint, mold on or in the walls, and foul-smelling air.

Using the fans in your home makes a huge impact on the amount of moisture in the air. This is a simple step that you can take to make sure that your home is not undermined by moisture.

·         Change Your Home’s Roof Material If you live in a Humid Environment

If you live in a humid location, it is wise to make the switch to a metal roof. This can help to prevent moisture from getting into the walls and issues with the roof that can make your home unstable and unsafe to live in. You might not be able to afford to do this right away, but it can be a beneficial change that can help to keep your home safe and undamaged for years to come.

·         You May Lower Humidity in Your Home by Treating Mold Yourself

If you see mold in your home, you can treat it if it is not too advanced. You will need to remove the source of the leak or the moisture, and then you can scrub the mold off surfaces. Use diluted bleach water to treat the surfaces that had mold on them so that you can be sure that these surfaces will not get moldy again. There are also mold cleaners that you can buy and mix to spray on your walls. This can be the easiest way to treat mold compared to making your own solution.

What if the Mold Situation in a Home is Very Serious Because of Humidity?

If the mold situation in your home has gotten very bad or if there is black mold in the walls, you will need to have a professional company come in and resolve and treat the issue. This can be very expensive, but it is your only option when your home has become contaminated at this level. This is one of the worst positions to find yourself in, and you should make sure to avoid this outcome at all costs.

Black mold can cause very serious health issues and even death. You do not want to allow this kind of contamination in your home to take place for any reason. Making sure to take care of the humidity in your home can prevent this issue from rearing its ugly head.

Maintaining a Healthy and Mold-Free Home in a Humid Environment Can be Easy

If you live in a humid environment, you need to be sure that you take care of the humidity in your home. This is a key aspect of making sure that your home is healthy and that you do not have to deal with structural issues and damage related to moisture in your home. Keeping your home moisture-free is essential if you want to make sure that you and your family are safe and secure for years to come.

As housing costs go up and the attention of the world is focused on sustainability, you might have realized that you could become part of the solution by using eco-friendly materials on your homestead. There are a variety of benefits to making this choice, from cost savings to reduced carbon emissions and energy savings. Choosing the right eco-friendly materials is easier than you might think since these are not exotic items that you have to get from places far away.

Eco-friendly materials do not harm the environment and can be easily disposed of when they are no longer in use. The use of eco-friendly materials is becoming increasingly common even in mainstream construction processes, so it has never been easier to get access to these quality materials for your homestead.

If you are ready to learn some more about the eco-friendly materials that you need to use on your homestead, you need to keep reading!

5 Great Eco-Friendly Materials to Use on Your Homestead

1.       Cobb is Eco-Friendly for Your Homestead

This is a product that has been in use to make homes for more than 10,000 years. Cob is a mixture of subsoil, fibrous organic material, and water. You can also include lime in the mix if you wish to change the color of the final product. Most people use a straw for the fiber component of their cob these days.

It is simple to build walls or an entire building from this material, and you will love that it is so energy efficient as well. Cob homes require very little energy to heat due to the natural insulation that is conferred by the material.

2.       Sheep Wool is a Great Choice to Use in Your Environmental Friendly Home

It has become increasingly popular to use sheep’s wool as insulation or to make fiber products like sweaters and blankets. You will get amazing results from insulating buildings with wool since this natural fiber traps air so effectively. This is an easy-to-source material in most areas of the country and very simple to work with when you need to insulate or protect items.

Sheep wool is no longer as popular in the textile industry as it once was because of the way that the product can smell when it gets wet and the time that is needed to card it and create fabric from it. However, in raw form, it makes a great building material.

3.       Use Reclaimed Wood For Your Eco-friendly Home

Reclaimed wood is not just a style choice these days. Reusing wood from buildings that have been torn down or installing doors and other wood items in your home that are already assembled can make a big difference in the sustainability of your homestead. Why throw out something that still works?

If you have wood leftover from another project, from the removal of an old structure, or from a remodel that you have done, make sure that you use as much of this wood product as possible in your building efforts. It costs a lot in energy and waste to create entirely new products made of wood, and you will be reducing your energy footprint by using reclaimed wood whenever possible.

4.       Cork is Eco-Friendly and a Great Choice for Your Homestead

Cork is a great choice for flooring and wall framing, and it is highly renewable and eco-friendly. This is a material that is resistant to moisture, and cork harvesting has been shown to help fight global warming as well. Many people actually donate their corks from wine bottles to this effort, and you can easily make your own cork walls on your homestead if you wish.

This is also a product that is readily sourced if you want to be able to just add it to your homestead in prefabricated sheets of material. Cork is a great insulator and one that can deliver big results for sound deadening, style, and sustainability.

5.       Recycled Steel is Great for Environmentally Friendly Home

Sometimes you will have to work with manufactured products that originally did require a fair amount of energy use to create. Recycled steel is your best option if you need to access a material that is this strong and durable without wanting to impact the environment negatively.

Steel is actually one of the most recycled products in the US, and choosing to buy recycled steel is a great way to encourage and support this necessary recycling effort. Steel that has been recycled is readily available nearly everywhere, and you will be doing your part to help the environment and sustainability by selecting this product over regular steel.

How Can I Make My Home More Eco-Friendly?

Making your home more eco-friendly involves the use of the materials listed above, but there are some other ways that you can give back to the earth on a daily basis while also maintaining your home.

 Add Solar in Your Home To Make it More Eco-Friendly

You should consider adding solar panels to your home if you want to use renewable power for your daily needs and also sell power back to the grid when possible. Solar energy has become more affordable to access than ever, and you will find that installing solar panels can easily generate enough power to maintain your household each month.

Compost Can Help to Make Home Eco-Friendly

Composting is an easy way to reuse food and other organic wastes that might otherwise have to be sent to the dump. Compost can help you to grow beautiful flowers and maintain a garden as well, so the benefits are two-fold. Using a compost bin to store your compost is easy, and you will be so glad that all of these wastes can be used for something else rather than simply heading to the landfill.

Use LED Lighting in Your Homestead to Make it Eco-Friendly

While you are not likely to convert to candles for your lighting in your homestead, you can choose LED lighting to help cut down on power usage and to get access to lighting that will last far longer than incandescent bulbs. You will get as much as 50,000 hours out of most LED lighting, and the quality of the light is far superior to that offered by more traditional bulb styles.

Living in an Eco-Friendly Home is Easier Than you Might Have Thought

If you have been trying to figure out how to save the environment every day, you need to consider using these building materials in your homestead and following the tips and tricks that have been listed in this guide. It is easier than you might think to convert your home to an energy-sustaining homestead. Changing the way that you utilize energy is just one step in creating a sustainable lifestyle, and you can use this guide to take care of this important step toward eco-friendly living.