One of my next chores is to go into the basement storage room and clean all the mold off the shelves and their contents from this summer's humidity in that room. It has 2 outside cement walls and 2 interior walls, with our water pressure tank in what's soon to be a closet. I think the condensation off the pressure tank and pipes contribute a lot to the humidity in there, as well as the cement walls. Does anyone know of a natural de-humidifier that I could put in there? or some non-electric means of taking humidity out of the air? Once it's cleaned up I don't want to have to do this again, it's going to be quite a chore. We're going to insulate the pressure tank and pipes to keep the condensation down on them. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

-- Rose Marie Wild (witnersongfarm@yahoo.com), November 21, 2000

Answers

Hi Rose Marie

I have a terrible problem with mold and mildew, both inside and out. Where I live is very humid most of the year and I fight it all the time. The only product I know of is called "Damp Rid", and it's some sort of calcuim, looks like little white beads which draws water out of the air. It comes in a special container that allows the condensed water to drip thru down into a bowl that you can dump out from time to time. I have bought it and put it in coffee cans, but as I said before, the water has to be poured off from time to time. The Damp Rid will eventually melt away and have to be replaced. This product works pretty well, but it is somewhat expensive. A quart size refill is about four dollars. If you have too much humidity, I don't know that it would be a good solution to your problem. They do have a website, just put damp rid into your search engine. Hope this helps!

-- Hannah Maria Holly (hannahholly@hotmail.com), November 21, 2000.

"Damp Rid" is Calcium Chloride (CaCl). CaCl is also used to melt ice when it's too cold for regular rock salt (Sodium Chloride NaCl) to work. I suspect you could get it much cheaper by the 50lb sack at a farm or building supply store than the Damp Rid stuff. You could make a solar-heated drier and reuse it.

==>paul

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), November 21, 2000.

It might be hard to find it if you live someplace that doesn't regularly get snow or ice in the winters, otherwise I agree with Paul. We buy bags of it (not 50 pounders, though) to de-ice our steps and driveway every winter.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), November 21, 2000.

Thanks everyone! I'll definitely be trying all of these, as well as activated charcoal, heard this works also. Appreciate your help.

-- Rose Marie Wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), November 25, 2000.