Crawl spaces are often overlooked by many homeowners since they rarely visit them. However, they’re still a part of the house that deserves attention from time to time. They’re prone to excessive moisture, which leads to rot, mold, mildew, infestations, and other problems detrimental to your health and home.

That’s where an under-house dehumidifier comes in. It helps keep moisture in your crawl space at the right levels to eliminate moisture-related risks in your home. Read on to learn more about what it can do.

Control Your Crawl Space’s Moisture Levels

As mentioned earlier, several problems may arise with high moisture levels in your crawl space. They bring destructive consequences to your property and sickness to your household.

Mold and mildew can grow on the wood supports in the area, rotting and weakening them. They can also be the cause of allergies and respiratory problems. Unwanted animals such as mice and termites are also attracted to moist environments, since it is the perfect place for them to thrive and multiply. Aside from chewing on wood, these critters bring health risks, from skin irritation to viral infections. Not to mention rodents bring a whole host of parasites with them such as ticks, fleas, and tapeworms.

On the other hand, too little moisture can cause your wood floors and foundation elements to dry out, crack, and warp. A place with low humidity also serves as an effective breeding ground for bacteria and viruses. In addition, it allows these pathogens to stay in the air much longer, increasing your chance of inhaling them.

These are reasons enough for you to get a dehumidifier. This device is designed to bring the moisture levels in the air down to about 30 to 50 percent. This range is ideal because it minimizes the growth of biological sources such as molds, mildew, bacteria, and insects, and therefore keeps your foundation and wood features safe from damage.

Help in Improving Your Health

Your home’s indoor air quality has a major impact on your overall health and well-being. Poor air quality can trigger numerous adverse health effects like respiratory problems, irritation, headaches, and many more. There’s also the fact that people with severe allergies or asthma are more susceptible to these effects. Sadly, your crawl space is one area that can worsen your indoor air quality.

Mold and mildew growing in your crawl space can release spores that circulate through your house. And once they’re floating around your home, there’s a big chance you’ll inhale them and trigger respiratory problems. The good news is that having a dehumidifier can help solve this issue.

Since dehumidifiers keep optimal moisture levels in your crawl space, mold and mildew won’t be able to properly grow there. And once they’re gone, you’ll notice an improvement in your air quality, leading to better overall health.

Prevent Pests From Getting in Your Home

Dehumidifiers are not just for maintaining a healthy humidity level for your home’s air circulation. These machines can also help in preventing pests from infesting. Rodents and insects are often attracted to damp environments that can offer them a constant source of moisture. Without proper ventilation and humidity control, pests like cockroaches, rats, termites, and mosquitoes can thrive in your crawl space before you even know it.

Some pests aren’t known to pose significant health risks to humans. But that doesn’t mean they should be around. Pests like termites eat the cellulose fibers in wood. And once they’re inside your house, they can cause significant damage to your walls and flooring by eating away through its wooden components. Unfortunately, many homeowners won’t see any signs of an infestation until it’s too late.

A dehumidifier can play a crucial role in deterring pests from entering your home. It does this by creating a drier environment in your crawl space. That’s because pests such as rodents and insects require a certain level of humidity to thrive. By reducing the moisture content in the air, the dehumidifier makes your crawl space less hospitable for them to live in.

Investing in a dehumidifier is a proactive step in safeguarding your home from these kinds of issues. Get a crawl space humidifier soon. You’ll be glad you did!