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Do Dehumidifiers Make Mold Go Dormant? – Myth #5

Today we're gonna cover the myth about dehumidifiers killing mold.

Can Mold Go Dormant?

Man, do we hear this a lot: "Mister homeowner, if you install a dehumidifier, it's gonna kill all the mold in your crawl space, or make it go dormant."

Well, which is it? Does it kill it, or does it make it go dormant? Guess what? Nobody knows. Even the microbiologists I've talked to don't know if mold actually goes dormant by putting in a dehumidifier. They say it's possible, but since there are so many different thousands of types of mold out there, they can't really tell which molds will go dormant, and which molds won't.

Crawl Space Dehumidifiers

Now, a dehumidifier certainly does slow the progression, or the growth rate, of the mold, because if you take the humidity and the moisture out, the mold isn't going to grow as rampant as it would before. But even if it does make it go completely dormant, just think of a groundhog. When a groundhog hibernates, or goes dormant, they're still alive.

Would you rather have live mold down there and it be in dormancy waiting for moisture? Or would you rather just go ahead and kill it?

We're gonna leave that up to you. But we call that a myth. If a person tells you that the dehumidifier kills mold, that is a myth.

The Solution

The best way to properly address mold in the crawl space takes some time. We recommend starting with completely drying out the crawl space, then applying a disinfectant and, if possible, physically removing the mold. Crawl space encapsulation is a great way to follow mold remediation to prevent any future mold growth.

 

This is a lightly modified transcript from our YouTube video, Crawl Space Myth #5 - Do Dehumidifiers Make Mold Go Dormant?

About Michael Church

Michael Church has been involved with indoor air quality since 2005 and feels the unhealthy crawl space is one of the major problems causing poor indoor air quality.

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