Humidity for Dummies

Moldy walls

There must be some sort of dysfunction that attacks the brains of internet freelancers when they sit down to write a "simple" post – here at the Antisocial Network, we see the results of this condition every day. Perhaps the most striking symptom is the inability for a writer to come up with a simple, straightforward solution to a problem. eHow.com is a primary vector for the disease – mainly because of its minimum word count – but it crops up elsewhere as well. Today, for instance, we found it at Seekyt.com (not exactly a paragon of quality writing) in the person of "webforjason" (a.k.a. Jason Knapfel). Jason's symptoms appear in something he called "How to Lower Humidity in Your Home."

The answer, at least to anyone who's ever lived in his or her own home (not in Mommy and Daddy's house or a dorm room) is awfully darned simple. Unless you live in a mud hut or a tepee heated by a fire pit in the center of the floor, all you need to do is turn on the heat or air conditioning. No matter whether you're raising or lowering the temperature of a space, the HVAC system extracts moisture from the ambient air.

Clearly, Jason's trying to answer – without looking like he's doing so, or perhaps not knowing he's trying to do so – a question about mold growth: he even mentions mold in the section he titled "How do you know if you have too much humidity in your home?" What he apparently doesn't know is that mold growth isn't the result of "...home features [that] can contribute to extra humidity, as well as some appliances..." No, major mold in a building almost invariably occurs because of moisture from outside the building, not that generated inside -- flooding, leaky roof, that kind of stuff. About the only exception is mold growing in an improperly-vented bathroom, and the solution for that problem – install an exhaust fan or just open a window – doesn't even appear in Jason's content.

About the only smart-ish thing Jason says is "Get a dehumidifier," which is not exactly rocket science: what else would you use if you wanted to dehumidfy something: a humidifier? But then he goes all wonky on us by advising homeowners with humidity problems to

"...consider calling a HVAC specialist about installing a heat pump dehumidifier in the dampest part of your home."

...which ranks right up there with some of the dumbest suggestions we've heard in a while. Apparently Jason isn't aware that you're asking someone to install a new furnace; why not just use the old one??? Between offering inane to ridiculous suggestions and a failure to recognize the simplest solutions, webforjason definitely qualifies for the award we're giving him here: the Dumbass of the Day.

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