Reasons Why Your Holiday Home Needs a Dehumidifier

You’ve worked hard this year. You’ve attended meetings, given presentation after presentation, done school runs, and helped with hours of homework. You are ready for a holiday. And you are super excited to put your feet up and just veg for a few days.

After months of having the doors and windows closed, your favourite holiday spot is likely to have mould and mildew growing rampant. Coastal regions have high humidity levels due to the amount of moisture in the air that is blown in from the ocean. This humidity can cause mould and mildew to grow out of control, especially when there is limited ventilation. The mould growth causes the damp smell that greets you when you open the door to your holiday home after months of it being sealed.

High humidity can cause all sorts of issues in your happy place. It can be the reason why your clothing has an earthy smell, why your washing doesn’t want to dry, or why you have mouldy curtains.

Reasons why your holiday home needs a dehumidifier

• Damp

Your sense of smell has the ability to trigger detailed memories and emotions. Holidays should smell like sunscreen, ice cream, braais and surf. I personally wouldn’t want the musty smell of damp to trigger any memories of my holiday. Unfortunately, when you open up your sealed coastal holiday home, caravan, or boat, you may not be greeted by the fresh smell of linen you’d hoped for but rather by the stale, musty smell of damp.

• Rust

Rust is another issue you may encounter in your holiday home. Areas with high humidity experience more rust because metal corrodes at a much greater rate under humid conditions, and the longer metal components are exposed to humid air, the faster they will generally corrode. If your holiday home happens to be at the coast, the salt water exacerbates the problem because the salt acts as a catalyst for the oxidation of iron, and the oxidation of iron is what rust is. If you’re taking down bicycles, metal tools, and gadgets, the rust from the holiday excursion to the coast could be a problem.

• Laundry 

Holidays are made for adventures, from swimming and snorkelling to riding on jet skis or enjoying sundowners on your boat. In between the revelry sessions, you need to clean and dry your things so that the fun can begin all over again. Unfortunately, in humid areas, drying clothing, wet suits, swimming costumes and water toys isn’t very easy. The already moisture-laden air has a high relative humidity (RH) and therefore less room for the moisture to evaporate.

Your solution - Invest in a dehumidifier

A dehumidifier is a fantastic device and an essential item to have in a coastal or humid environment. Trying to maintain low humidity at the coast naturally is near impossible. You can try opening windows, using fans and placing charcoal in a jar to absorb damp smells, but the most efficient method is definitely a dehumidifier. 

A dehumidifier removes the moisture from the air in your holiday home, which means no more mould or mildew growth.

By placing a dehumidifier in your laundry room, you will be able to efficiently dry your clothing so that when you next need your holiday gear it is clean, dry, smells fresh and is ready to go.

By placing a dehumidifier in the garage, you can rest assured knowing your car, motorbike, bicycles, tools, and other metal items that you’ve taken along won’t be affected by rust.

If you use one of the MeacoDry Arete® One models, they have the added bonus of acting as a dehumidifier and an air purifier. While they bring down the room’s humidity levels, they can also clean your air of pollutants and impurities with the integrated medical-grade H13 HEPA filter.

The MeacoDry Arete® One comes in varying sizes and models to suit your space and needs. They are small enough to be moved between rooms and can remove between 1.41 and 25.67 litres of water per day, depending on the model. They support continuous drainage, which means you can connect a standard garden hose to the adaptor and use the dehumidifier without having to empty the water storage tank whenever it fills up. Combine this with their ability to operate efficiently while using very little energy, and you can happily leave it to look after your home and possessions while you're away.

-

Get in touch if you would like to learn more about how the MeacoDry Arete® One range is the perfect companion to take with you this holiday.