This Is How We Keep Our House From Going Musty (The Filipino Way)

Close up the house for the cold this week, anak, my child, and the water your family makes every day has a lot less room to get out. A home inspector writing for the American Society of Home Inspectors puts it at about three gallons a day for a family of four, from cooking, bathing and breathing. With the windows shut, it lands on the cold places, like the bottom of the window glass, and it can settle at the back of a closet on an outside wall and on the wall behind the dresser. By February you find a saucer-sized black patch back there, and the whole house smells of kulob, our word for that musty, closed-up smell of a room nobody opened. My mother fought the damp every tag-ulan, the rainy season in Batangas, with six things she started the week the rain came, and the sixth one does a little of the work of all the other five. These are the six, in the order they come in the video, and why the one you will argue with me about helps all the others. 1. THE WINDOW SILL - A piece on the blog of Structure Tech, a home inspection company in Minnesota, says condensation forms on the coldest part of the glass, which tends to be the bottom edge. On older double-pane windows, the ones with a metal strip between the panes, the wet line often curves up at the two bottom corners, and that piece calls it the condensation smile. - Keep one dry basahan, a rag, by the window. Every morning, one pass along the bottom of the glass and one along the sill, and then the rag goes in the laundry, not back on the sill wet. 2. THE LAUNDRY - Researchers led by the Glasgow School of Art surveyed 100 households, and 87 percent of the ones asked during the heating months dried their washing indoors. One load dried inside puts 2 to 2.5 liters of water into the house. - The drying rack goes where the air moves, never into the bedroom. 3. THE APARADOR, THE WARDROBE - North Dakota State University's extension service says a closet can be damp enough to grow mold even when the humidity in the rest of the house is low, because in winter a closet can be cooler than the rooms around it, especially a closet on an outside wall. - Nothing goes in damp. Leave a two-finger space between hangers, and put a tin of plain charcoal, uling, at the back for the smell. 4. THE BATHROOM - The fan runs 20 more minutes after a shower (Home Ventilating Institute), and the door needs a gap under it so the fan has air to pull in. The whole story is in my grout video. 5. THE FURNITURE ON OUTSIDE WALLS - Aberdeen City Council says to keep furniture off outside walls, and where you cannot, at least 50 millimeters away, about 2 inches. 6. MAGPAHANGIN, GETTING SOME AIR - Air at freezing, 32 degrees Fahrenheit, even when it holds every drop of water it can, turns into very dry air once you warm it to 70 degrees, somewhere around 20 to 25 percent humidity (building scientist Allison Bailes). - The University of Minnesota's extension service says in winter to open the windows a little for a while, to let the warm, moist air out and the cold, dry air in. In my house I open two windows on opposite sides, just a little, for as long as it takes me to sweep the kitchen floor, and then I shut them. Which month do your windows close for the year, and where do you live? Tell me in the comments. SOURCES: Dale Dorman, Moisture Control in Homes, ASHI Reporter (2005). Soft-Lite, Understanding Window Condensation. Structure Tech blog, Controlling Window Condensation. PAGASA, Climate of the Philippines. Glasgow School of Art (MEARU), Environmental Assessment of Domestic Laundering. NDSU Extension, Care Required in Closets and Storage Areas to Prevent Mold Growth. UF/IFAS Extension, Mildew Removal. Earl Proulx, How to Get Rid of Musty Smells, Yankee Magazine. Home Ventilating Institute, Bathroom Ventilation. Aberdeen City Council, condensation leaflet. Allison Bailes, Ventilating a Home in Cold Weather, GreenBuildingAdvisor (2018). University of Minnesota Extension, Controlling moisture problems in your home.