Is it bad if my apartment doesn’t get any drafts in it? I want to block the front door gap, but my dad got mad and said this would cause mold issues.
How and why? I mean I don’t live there so why would it become humid?
It’s not really an option to keep it open cause I’m allergic to some of the stuff that comes in from the neighbours
Follow up question: is it true that turning the bathroom fan on won’t do anything, if there isn’t somewhere outside the apartment that air can be drawn from?
All mold cares about is humidity. If relative humidity is over like 55-60% then mold will grow. That’s it. Stale air and lack of airflow help to keep humidity high because air is not being circulated evenly. You can get pockets of high humidity in certain areas. So that will add to the chances of mold.
Technically it’s a combination of absolute humidity and temperature. Bathrooms can be prone to mold even if they’re not any more humid than the rest of the house, because metal plumbing can conduct heat out of the room into the ground—causing the room to get cold enough for moisture to condense even if the water fixtures in the room aren’t in use.
Yeah, for sure. Relative humidity is influenced heavily by temperature so i kinda baked that into my answer haha.
Here’s the book of standards for indoor air quality published by ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers):
https://www.ashrae.org/File Library/Technical Resources/Standards and Guidelines/Standards Addenda/62-2001/62-2001_Addendum-n.pdfAnd this is the relevant bit for this situation:
I don’t understand what you mean when you say you “don’t live there” ?
Regardless, if you consider mold in general then the room which most typically gets mild growing is the bathroom, because it’s moist and warm which is perfect condition.
It doesn’t take much to get mild growing in other places too though. If you have moisture in the air then mould could happen.
Good ventilation helps prevent mould because it lets the humid air created from normal activities like cooking and washing escape and be replaced with drier air from outside - assuming you live in a climate that doesn’t have crazy humidity.
As in, I don’t live in the apartment, I’m living somewhere else currently. So, nobody uses any water, does any laundry, cooks etc. there.
So I don’t understand how it could become humid inside my apartment.
Fair :) But on that basis why are you wanting to block things off if neither you nor anyone else is living there?
That wasn’t my question
If a pipe breaks or just starts leaking or water comes in from a different apartment and you aren’t there to catch it you can get mold.