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We are considering CR for relocation, but I am concerned about the mold problem I have read about on the forum. Is there any area in CR that has less of a mold problem than others? Any area that is relatively safe from the crime situation and low mold problem would be wonderful if such an area exists in CR. I have read about this past rainy season in CR being the worst in quite some time, and people developing allergies from the mold and also developing asthma. We have 2 boys, 5 and 11, and none of my family has an allergy problem so we need to be wise in our relocation. I didn’t know if the coastal areas were better for not having as much problem with mold, or if the higher elevations would be better. Any assistance someone can give me would be appreciated. Thanks.
Igloo, your plan is to locate in a tropical climate. Mold will be a consideration wherever you land, but you can take steps to limit your exposure. You’ll probably find coastal and other low-lying areas to be more humid than higher elevations and therefore more susceptible to mold and mildew problems, but even inland you need to take some steps.
If you’re designing your own home, try to include cross ventilation in every room. Take advantage of prevailing winds. You might also plan to install ceiling fans in every room, including large closets, to keep the air circulated and fresh. Of course, if the house will be air conditioned then the humidity problem will be taken care of.
For smaller closets, you can plan to install heater strips that will reduce humidity, or you can install ozone generators. We have an ozone generator in our large walk-in closet which also has good ventilation and we’ve had no discernable mold or mildew problem.
Hi Igloo, CR doesn’t really have a mold “problem” per se, but because it is a tropical country, the high humidity levels and high biodiversity indices can create mold problem situations in your home if you’re not careful and will probably expose you to organisms that you have not been exposed to before. I was one of those post writers that you refer to. This may or may not cause you and your family to have an allergic reaction and it doesn’t need to limit your possibilities of living if you take the necessary precautions. Any mold or mildew will reproduce via small spores which are invisible to us and come into our homes from the outside air and only grow when they’ve landed on moist surfaces inside your home. The mold in the air is inevitable in most places of the globe, but what is NOT inevitable is that it will grow into a problem if you take some necessary precautions. As a tropical biologist I can tell you:
*The general advice is to reduce the humidity within your home to below 50% in your home, that may NOT be possible in CR so there what you must do is to keep it aired out (open windows regularly and create good ventilation patterns) and use fans if needed, don’t close up rooms for any long period of time, air out closets & cabinets from time to time, use bathroom fans and if you’re really worried about an area of your home being TOO humid, then use a dehumidifier there (but typically, not necessary…).
*Avoid stagnant water anywhere in the home or near the home caused by dripping or condensation build up from leaky pipes, clogged drains, a/c units (typically a/c is not necessary in most of CR), leaky roofs or clogged gutters, etc.
*Keep your home clean, furniture not totally against the walls (leave some air room), and clean up any mold or mildew as soon as you see it. If it smells moldy, look for it and clean it up with environmentally friendly substances to prevent any further allergic reaction in your family by using very toxic and usually unnecessary cleaning materials (vinegar & water, eco-friendlier detergents and worst case scenario then use bleach sparingly and NEVER mix it with anything else, specially not with something that contains ammonia since this will produce toxic fumes). Mold doesn’t become a problem overnight.
*Use anti-fungal paints on your interior and exterior walls and make sure those surfaces are free of mold (repaint as needed).
*I would highly suggest that you do NOT use wall to wall carpeting in CR as this could become a real mold problem that you may not see and can affect any person with allergies. Area rugs can easily be aired out and cleaned so they do not seem to be such a problem.
*If you do find mold growing on a porous surface in your home (ceiling tiles, carpeting, etc.) remove it and replace it, these CANNOT easily (if ever) be made free of the mold once it has started to grow there…
As a mom and someone that was not at first prepared to deal with this situation in CR and did develop asthma, keep your kids eating healthily to promote their immune system and they should be okay. The allergic reaction, if it does arise, should pass if their immune system is healthy. My 3 1/2 year old daughter never developed any allergic reactions, but I must say that I was much more careful with her nutrition than with my own. Something that I have since corrected and no longer suffer from asthma… Pura Vida!
I appreciate that I may not be as sensitive as some people but in the big picture of choosing a place to live, surely mold is a miniscule concern?
The only time I really notice this is maybe I have to dry-clean my dress pants more than I otherwise would. It never seems to affect my jeans but seems to affect the clothes that have been dry-cleaned…
My solution? I wear jeans and flip flops every day although I must confess I do put on a T-shirt if I have to leave the house for an appointment
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comI’ve had my dehumidifier running 24/7 for over a year, and it JUST got down to 60% humidity! The first year concrete walls will typically sweat until they are completely dried out. When we left the end of March this year, my husband insisted (over my protestations) that we close all the bedroom doors. I knew this was a rotten idea and when I came back down in July, the rooms that had been closed smelled musty, and my duvet covers were mottled with mildew. Clothes I had thrown into the washer (with the lid left open) when I left were so mildewed they had to be soaked in boiling vinegar water for nearly a whole day to remove the smell and the stains. When I left in August, I left the closet doors open, the bedroom doors open, and centrally positioned the dehumidifier so that it would draw moisture from the back and front of the house. I had a friend check things for me in late October and he said everything was fine, humidity was down, the bedrooms didn’t smell. Air circulation is really important in Costa Rica. When I come down in 4 weeks, I plan to install ceiling fans in the living room and the bedrooms. I have good cross-ventiliation in my house, but don’t have screens on all my windows yet, so when I open them all the bugs fly in, so I open them in short spurts to air out the house. I don’t think I could live without a dehumidifier — it provides a host of advantages, one of them being when I put it in my pila and close the door, I can hang laundry in there and it will be dry in less than two hours (I don’t have a clothes dryer yet), at less cost than running a dryer. Viva la dehumidifier!
Maravilla, using the dehumidifier to help dry your clothes has got to be the most innovative use of a dehumidifier that I have ever heard of! 🙂 And you’re right, keep that cross ventilation going inside the home or mold will undoubtedly become a problem….
Igloo, As I was getting ready for school and putting on some moisturizing skin lotion I remembered that not everything is negative for us humans that Costa Rica has such high humidity levels…As a matter of fact, your skin will think it’s marvelous and thank you by feeling soft, replenished and supple…something I miss when I’m not there and have to use lotions instead (but the feeling is not the same…) so don’t go overboard in trying to remove humidity, just keep the conditions mostly inhospitable for mold growth and you and your family should be fine…
Necessity if the mother of invention, eh? When my down pillows got all soggy I put them in the pila with the dehumidifier, et voila, in a half hour the down was all fluffy again, so I decided if it worked for that, then en principe, it should work for drying clothes on a particularly drizzly, damp day in the cloud forest! Now I’ve gotten so used to doing things like this that I wonder if I even need to both with getting a power-sucking dryer.
Jessicab, BioZone ozone generators were recommended to me by an old Costa Rica hand whose advice is consistently good. You can buy them online. Shop for the best price. Nobody said “cheap”, but they are quite effective.
Maravilla, et al, I think that if you do the math you’ll find that a dehumidifier will take just as much or more electricity to remove a pint of water from a load of laundry as an electric dryer will. In fact, since the dryer vents outside the house, it will probably be more energy efficient. What’s more, with its humidity sensor, a dryer will turn itself off when the laundry is dry; a dehumidifier will run on and on until you turn it off. And you have to empty it.
My dehumidifier has a 50-foot hose that goes directly into the floor drain, and I can also program it to shut off when it reaches a certain percentage of humidity. My neighbor who is an engineer did the calculations for me and basically the dehumidifier uses as much juice as a 50 watt bulb, which is a lot less than the dryer. You’d be very surprised how quickly I can dry a small batch of damp laundry with my crazy method! It seems that the biggest problem, even when drying clothes outside, is that they are never really really dry, so a half hour in the pila and the problem is solved. Coming from Colorado where we have an average of 25% humidity, it takes some time to get used to things always feeling damp, so the only method I found to solve that problem was moving the dehumidifier to various rooms, shutting the door and letting things dry out to about 45%.
PRECAUTIONARY NOTE ON OZONE GENERATORS…I hadn’t read the posting on ozone strips until now because yesterday was a bit crazy for me and I know that ozone (O3) has been used to purify water and remove biological contaminants in sterilizations, but I also know that we’re not meant (as biological beings) to be in excessive contact with O3. I hadn’t heard about those home uses for O3 and I would like you all to read the information the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says about ozone:
“If used at concentrations that do not exceed public health standards, ozone applied to indoor air does not effectively remove viruses, bacteria, mold, or other biological pollutants…Some data suggest that low levels of ozone may reduce airborne concentrations and inhibit the growth of some biological organisms while ozone is present, but ozone concentrations would have to be 5 – 10 times higher than public health standards allow before the ozone could decontaminate the air sufficiently to prevent survival and regeneration of the organisms once the ozone is removed (Dyas, et al.,1983; Foarde et al., 1997).”
IN OTHER WORDS, if an ozone strip is working to eliminate fungal spores, then they are working by generating TOXIC LEVELS of O3 for humans and will be HARMFUL to the lung function of humans (especially children, elderly, people w/asthma, etc…). Visit the following sites for more information:
http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=static.ozone2#2
http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/ozonegen.html
Please know that airing out your home is one of the safest ways to avoid mold in your home along with following some other simple precautions. Sometimes safety is not the “easiest or fastest” route, but maintaining the health of our family is worth the extra effort…Pura Vida!
Has anyone tried the golden rod dehumidifers? I read some info awhile ago on them. They are made for use in mostly boats. I did a search on them and Boaters World sells them in 3 different lengths. They seem like they may be a good idea for closets and rooms with electronics. If anyone has heard of them or used them, I would like to know if you think they would work.
Wow, thanks for the info dhsbooker! I just looked them up and according to their site they sound like they would be a viable idea for CR especially for closets and cabinets as long as air circulation is an option (slatted doors, etc.). I guess it would be questionable near perishable food or too close to heat sensitive electronics since it does heat up to 150 degrees, it runs on regular 110 volt and you would probably need to leave them on all the time during the rainy season which may raise your electric bill a bit (unless you have solar panels), and you would need to make sure kids didn’t touch them to avoid any accidents, but otherwise it’s compact enough that it may be very helpful for various residential applications. There are a few testimonials on the site from Floridians that use them specifically to keep mold & mildew at bay…It may not solve all the problems, but it sure seems to be a useful tool in the battle against mold in CR–I wish I had known about them before….Pura Vida and thanks again!
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