Airing Out Your House "Luftung"

Congratulations! You have your new home to live in. It is so exciting and hectic at the same time. People will be telling you all sorts of things you need to know, and half of it you will forget. One thing you can't forget is that you live in a humid climate. Another thing you may have noticed is that German houses are made very well. What is different is that here in Germany you won't have central air conditioning, you won't have air conditioning at all for that matter. Heat you ask? Well heat will either be from heated floors or radiators.  Not quite what you are used to but it is easy to adjust to.



First,  you NEED to air out your house at least once a day, preferably twice. What you do is you wake up in the morning and open all the windows in your house all the way. You see German windows are on a sort of double hinge. The windows open sideways all the way or you can tip the top part open for a tiny breeze.  However, what you want here is the full onslaught of outside air and in order to get that you will need to open all your windows wide open from the top of your house to the basement. Then leave them open for about twenty minutes. After that the air inside of your house should be fresh and you are free to shut your windows again. Always open the window when you are showering. In Germany you won't have fans in your bathrooms circulating air so you need your window to be open to help facilitate the air circulation. Then in the evening repeat the process again.

Since the houses are so air tight and don't have any circulating air in them it is very important to air them out or you will have mold growing on your walls, and in your showers.

You never want to place furniture right next to the wall. There needs to be space for this air to circulate or again, you will get mold.

I recommend a digital indoor humidity monitor. Here is the one I found on Amazon that was reasonable. This way you can monitor your relative humidity and make sure it doesn't get too high.