dehumidifiers and handwritten Blatherings

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Yay, I have a dehumidifer in my basement office! This may not sound all that exciting to some of you, but it makes a big difference in the coziness factor; I love my new office but lately it's been feeling a bit damp (esp. first thing in the morning), and some of my paperback covers have started curling. My dad helped us get a new Kenmore dehumidifier as a housewarming gift, and it's now sitting under my office tree beside my keyboard.

Up to recently, I had zero knowledge about (and frankly, interest in) dehumidifiers. Here are a few things I learned during my recent research, in case any of you are dying to know as well:

- Musty basement smells are often caused by too much humidity (which encourages mold growth; see below).

- When humidity is over 50 per cent, mold is more likely to grow indoors. Also, dust mites prefer relative humidity of 50 per cent and higher. Both can cause respiratory problems.

- If someone in the household is asthmatic, you should consider keeping the humidity level in the bedroom at 40 per cent or less.

- Here's how a dehumidifier works.

- This page has a useful table with typical symptoms and long-term effects of humidity problems (too much and too little). Recommended home relative humidity (RH) levels:

Recommended indoor RH: 30% to 50%

When it is below -10 deg C outdoors, recommended indoor RH: 30%

Hm. I wonder if I could sell a magazine article about home humidity? I've already started working on queries about selling and buying a house and moving. Home ownership is certainly inspiring me to venture into knowledge areas I had only vague awareness of before. Like gardening, for instance; I just found out that a plant I quite liked in our garden is actually a weed.

So many articles and books I want to write, so little time...

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