LESLIE: Jim in Pennsylvania is looking to install a hot tub. Lucky duck. Tell us about your project.
JIM: We’re looking to install a hot tub indoors, in a sunroom that we have in our house. My big question is I’m concerned about what kind of ventilation I would need to put in and what I – what sort of treatment I would need to do to the walls to avoid mold and damage to the walls.
TOM: Oh, come on, Jim. Suck it up and put it outside. Go out there with your bathing suit on in the winter, drop in and everything will be good. No moisture problems. Save yourself a lot of aggravation.
Alright. I tell you what, you are absolutely right to be concerned, because those hot tubs are moisture machines when you put them inside a building. And you absolutely most dehumidify or vent to the outside. They put off so much moisture. If you don’t, you can have all sorts of mold problems and air-quality issues. So, that is as much a part of this project as getting the tub in.
And you might want to rely on your tub installers or the company you’re buying this from for some specific advice. But there are systems designed for this that either dehumidify the air that’s in there or there’s one that pressurize the space a little bit. And in doing so, it sort of moves the moisture out. But one way or the other, you have to plan to get that moisture out of that space or you will have some of the issues pop up that you’re rightly concerned about.
JIM: OK. So, damage to the walls, do you know – do I need to treat the walls? Would I need to, you know, put some sort of laminate on the walls or something like that or …?
TOM: Well, if you have standard drywall in a high-humidity situation like that, you’re going to get mold that grows. There’s mold-resistant drywall. If you want to replace the drywall, you can. But that’s kind of dealing with it after the fact. I want you to stop that moisture from growing to the point where …
LESLIE: Before it’s a problem.
TOM: Right. Before it’s a problem. And that’s why you need to really focus in, initially, on the dehumidification system that you decide to deploy, OK?
JIM: OK. Well, thank you all very much for your time. I appreciate the information.
TOM: You’re welcome, Jim. Good luck with that project and thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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