By Bill & Kevin Burnett
Q: You can settle an argument for us. Our shower is in a very small room - 5 by 5 1/2 feet - off the master bedroom.
When showering, we open the window and leave it open for a while, to disperse excess moisture. Also, we leave the room's door open to the rest of the house for more airing.
I believe two to four minutes of open window and door after showering should do the job. My spouse thinks more is needed, but sometimes we forget to close the window and 10 minutes can turn into hours of trying to heat or cool the great outdoors. Help!
A: Good question. We don't know if we can help, but we sure can give you our opinion. We've also invited Kevin's wife, Heidi, to contribute here.
Truly, men are from Mars and women are from Venus. For years, Heidi and Kevin have had the same continuing debate about steam in the bathroom. They live in Eagle, Idaho, a small town just west of Boise, where climate and temperatures are more extreme than in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In fact, as this is written, it's 25 degrees and snowing and the bathroom window is open to let the steam from the morning shower escape.
Heidi says she wants the room to air out; Kevin sees dollar bills flying out the window in a futile attempt to heat southwestern Idaho. Of course, when the steam is gone, Heidi thinks the house is cold and on comes the heater. For Kevin, it's a battle better left unfought to maintain household peace and to ensure domestic tranquility.
The word from Mars
Now to the question. First, a word from Mars. The Burnett brothers view the situation as you do. Our opinion is that leaving the door and the window open four minutes is more than enough to ventilate your shower. The warm steam will vent out the window, and the open door will provide cross ventilation, thus moving the process along.
We'd suggest that if you have a fan, use it. If you don't have a fan, consider installing one. Bathroom fans are inexpensive and if you install one yourself, a fan might provide a cheap fix. If the fan vents enough cubic feet of air per minute out of the bathroom, you may not have to open the window at all.
The word from Venus
As you might suspect, Heidi has a different take on the situation.
"Ten minutes airing the bathroom is necessary to reduce the chance of mold and mildew growing in your shower. This is likely your wife's main concern. In our house, my job is cleaning the bathroom, including bleaching tile grout to kill mold and mildew.
"My main concern is that mold and mildew are a health hazard. A good compromise might be to leave the window open longer but close the bathroom door. This should vent the steam from the bathroom, and you won't feel like you're heating or cooling the great outdoors."
Whatever you decide, it's the result that counts. If your shower starts to become a petri dish for mold cultures, more ventilation is required -- even if you are forced to heat and cool the great outdoors.
Perhaps you could invest a few dollars in a cheap kitchen timer and set it to go off in seven minutes as a reminder to shut the window.
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