Moisture in our basement- help!

[eirual]

We NEED to get a dehumidifier. Is there anything I can do in the mean time to keep our damp basement a little dryer? It's musty and when we run the fan setting on our furnace it stinks up the house.

Would turning on the furnace dry out the air at all?

[snanna]

Do you know where the moisture is coming from? Depending on the source, you might take different tactics....

[ASusan]

This may be strange, but be careful about the amount of fresh air you let into the basement. As you let fresh air in, it cools and then draws more moisture in. Or something like that. I 've had this happen in a basement of my house, and when I lived in a basement apartment.

There is a product called Damp-Rid, and I used to hang it among clothing that I stored in a basement. Probably not the most natural stuff.

Once you get a dehumidifier, don't run it so much that the air is drier than the soil outside the basement walls. If you dry out the air too much, it draws moisture through the basement walls. Using a dehumidifier is a delicate art.

If you can warm the basement air with warm dry air (furnace?), that may help.

[eirual]

We live somwhat near a river. I've always heard that every basement in this city will NEED a dehumidifier and that's proving very true for us.

[SleeplessMommy]

If you have an AC, you can run it to dry things out. I would suggest Drylock paint + dehumidifier. I assume you have had lots of rain lately?

[wendinbill]

We bought a nice fan from Target-it's a big black fan that sets on the floor-more of an industrial type. We run that instead of the dehumidifier most of the time. As long as you keep the windows shut & keep the air circulating, it should help!

[4evermom]

I've been working on clearing out years of water damaged, moldy stuff from our basement. I've discovered mopping has really helped with that awful stench. My mom likes to open the basement windows and turn on the attic fan to draw up the cool (dank, smelly, moldy) air and I'm so pleased that mopping has gotten rid of the odor. I'm trying to use fans enough to keep the air moving and the corners dry. We get moisture through the walls when we have rain.

Anyway, I'm just laughing at myself and my discovery that cleaning makes things cleaner and less smelly.