Every winter, salt emerges as a hero. Local officials spread it on streets and highways to keep traffic running. Since salt lowers the freezing point of water, it prevents ice from forming and making the roads dangerous. Now, it turns out it could also hold a way to keep your house safe and in great shape, too—all you need to do is place bowls of salt by the windows.
The enemies in sight here are damp and mold, which can make their way into your house through the windows. When temperatures drop, and one side of a pane of glass is colder than the other, condensation forms. Since you're likely to be heating your home, the warm air clashes with the cold surface and cools down, releasing the moisture it contains and turning it into droplets. These droplets can then run down and make things wet, creating the perfect conditions for mold to form around your window frames.
This recommendation to leave bowls by your windows first started making rounds in the UK. The concept is simple. Salt absorbs moisture from the air. The bigger the window, the bigger the bowl, but still nothing too crazy. However, you'd need a bowl for each window. For it to keep working, you have to check and replace the salt often once it has trapped enough moisture. The way to know if this has happened is if the salt in the bowl is clumping, with the bowl itself becoming a little wet.
While convenient, the salt alone shouldn't be left alone to do all the work. Instead, it should be regarded as an aid. After all, salt only begins to absorb water vapor at relatively high humidity. Ventilation is the real trick to keeping your home free of mold during the winter months. This can be achieved either through vents often built into windows or by simply opening them to let the air circulate. If your bathroom has an extractor, turning it on after a shower can help a lot, as well as avoiding drying clothes indoors or boiling water without a lid to stop moisture from entering into the air.
Leaving a bowl of salt by your windows may help reduce condensation, which can prevent mold from forming around your windows during the winter.
While convenient, the salt shouldn't be left alone to do all the work. The real trick to keeping your home free of mold during the winter months is ventilation.
Source: Why Are People Being Asked To Put Bowls Of Salt In Their Windows This Winter?
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