ArcaMax

You may be plagued with mold and mildew in your tub and shower area. It’s a very common problem. The good news is that if you’re willing to spend just 30 extra seconds once you’ve rinsed off all the body wash and shampoo from your hair, I can just about guarantee you’ll never have mold and mildew again.

Mold and mildew are much like fire. You need just three things to have a fire: fuel, heat and oxygen. Remove any one of the three ingredients, and you’ll not have flames and smoke.

Mold and mildew spores, food and water are the three things you need to fuel mold and mildew growth. The spores are everywhere in your home. You’d need an expensive whole-house filtration system to prevent them from being on all the surfaces in your home.

The food for mold and mildew is plentiful in your tub and shower area. Body oil, dust, soap deposits, dirt and grime from your body that doesn’t make it down the drain can accumulate in tubs and showers that aren’t cleaned on a very regular basis. At the very least, you’d have to clean the tub and shower every three days.

Water is the easiest of the three ingredients to control and minimize. You need to get rid of all of the water in your tub and shower area as rapidly as possible to inhibit the growth of the nasty black organisms.

There are many ways to achieve this water control. I use a squeegee in my shower to get all the water off the tempered glass walls and acrylic surfaces. I also squeegee the floor, directing all the liquid water to the drain.

You may have a shower curtain. My son has one in the shower I use when I work overnight at his house. After I turn off the shower, I shake the curtain to get off as much water as possible. I’m careful not to stress the grommets at the top to prevent tears in the plastic curtain.

The last step is to use an old towel to dry off all the surfaces in the tub and shower. Yes, I know this is not easy, but it’s exactly how you ensure there’s no mold or mildew growth.

Let’s say you choose not to do this last step. You should do several things to get the water to evaporate quickly. Leave the shower door open when you exit the bathroom. You need air to get into the tub and shower area. Don’t close the shower curtain to hide the tub and shower. Once again, you need to leave it open to encourage dry air to get into the space.

Leave the door to the bathroom open if possible. You want less humid air from the house to get into the bathroom. Consider installing a timer or humidistat control on your bathroom exhaust fan. You’re trying to get the humid air out and create air currents in the room to foster rapid evaporation of the water.

You can also use a free-standing vertical fan in the bathroom. My son has one. It takes up very little floor space, yet it produces a vigorous stream of air. His fan rotates to distribute the air in the room.

Fancy remote air blowers are also available, should you be remodeling your shower or building a new home. My daughter installed one of these systems in a bathroom in her home.

These systems resemble the air dryers you might have seen at a car wash. Once you exit the shower, you flip a switch, and the blower turns on. Dry air comes out of any number of strategically placed round non-directional nozzles, directional nozzle outlets, or sleek, narrow linear trim vents. The air is piped to these outlets using flexible, clear plastic hoses.

The fan can be up to 50 feet away from the shower stall if necessary. You’ll get peak performance if you place the fan in a closet that shares a wall with the shower. The 2 horsepower blower can deliver 115 cubic feet of dry air per minute. This will dry out a shower in minutes, especially if you invest 15 seconds using a squeegee to get most of the water into the drain.

I can assure you that you’ll feel much better about your bathroom, plus you’re creating a healthier environment for you and your family, if you take those extra seconds to dry out your shower.

Yes, I can hear you now. You may be willing to do this, but you’ll have a very hard time convincing the others in your family to change their habits. If this is the case, then you must forget about the water and clean the shower every few days. I know, I know, this is a pain too!

I wish you the best of luck in your mold/mildew battle. You now know what you’re up against. You just have to decide what strategy works best for you.

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