How Moisture Affects the Clothes in Your Closet

Moisture is one of the biggest problems that people can face in their homes. No home is safe from it.
How Moisture Affects the Clothes in Your Closet

Last update: 13 July, 2020

Your home is exposed to different problems. One of the questions that you may ask yourself is how moisture affects the clothes in your closet. If you want to make sure that your clothes stay in good condition, it’s best to resort to effective solutions.

Prevention is the best way to avoid problems. However, without you even realizing it, moisture can make its way into your home and affect it in many ways.

If  you haven’t prevented this problem and you’ve now reached a point of no return, the ideal thing is to understand and analyze the moisture problems inside your closet and what solutions to use.

How moisture gets into closets

Moisture on a wall.

The closet is a piece of furniture that’s usually placed next to a wall. This means that you can’t see what’s happening just behind it.

When moisture makes its way into your home, you can see it and, in addition, you will become aware of its characteristic odor. In the event that it appears in a wooden cabinet, the moisture and mold that develop will spread, affecting everything you store inside.

You need to be careful with moisture, since it has the ability to spread in a short time.

How moisture affects the clothes in your closet

The first thing to understand is how moisture affects the clothes in your closet. From there, you’ll know what the appropriate measures to solve this serious problem are. Let’s look at four problems that your clothes face:

  1. The most serious of all is, obviously, the deterioration of the material. No matter the type of fabric of the garment (linen, cotton, synthetic leather, artificial leather…), any can be affected by moisture and suffer the consequences.
  2. Mold is a harmful agent that harms wood and clothing and is sometimes invisible. Although it has different appearances, it usually manifests with dark dots, either on the external or internal part. On dark clothing, you can see it in white tones.
  3. A bad smell is another of the conditions that your clothes face. Since it’s in a closed space, the moisture will produce an intense smell that your clothes absorb. In fact, to remove it, you have to wash your clothes several times. And even then, the smell may not disappear.
  4. Clothes need a dry environment. Thus, when it gets hot and humid a wet effect can occur, which is not good for the clothes. In the long term, the textures and shapes lose their original appearance.

Solutions if moisture affects the clothes in your closet

How moisture affects the clothes in your closet.

There’s no doubt that the best way to avoid the appearance of moisture is to know your house: how it was built, the materials used, the geographical positioning, the adversities it faces, etc. You have to be especially careful with wood and look after it.

In fact, you must observe and be vigilant. When you go on vacation for a long period of time, if you leave the house empty for several months, or if you leave it closed, moisture has free reign.

If you have moisture on a wall, before it gets to your closet, you must remove it and apply blockers. In the event that it affects the furniture, you should immediately restore the wood. The time you lose will play against you.

Another way to protect the clothes in your closet

In the event that your clothing is at risk, you must find other ways to protect it. There are covers to store clothes. Since it can be time-consuming to put them over all your clothes, you can resort to this solution for suits and dresses that you don’t regularly wear.

In addition, it’s best to place the clothes you wear on a daily basis in more open closet spaces and make sure they aren’t continually rubbing against walls. And in summary, it’s best if your house is well insulated.

 


All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.


  • Rougeron, Claude: Aislamiento acústico y térmico en la construcción, Barcelona, Editores técnicos asociados, 1977.