Why Storage Rooms Develop Odors Even When Closed?
Are you wondering why you always perceive strange odors whenever you open your storage room? Well, there are so many reasons why this may happen and we’ll unravel them one after the other. Before we proceed, it’s good that we get the distinction clear between a storage room and a storage container/cabinet.
What is a storage room used for? Storage rooms are exactly what the name implies; a place where different items are kept either for a short or long period of time. A storage room is part of the building plan and it has fixed walls, a door and even a ceiling. This room is big enough for a human to enter and it is usually designed to handle very large items or high-volume storage like furniture and other seasonal items. Some examples of storage rooms in a building are utility rooms, garage, warehouse area and even home pantry. Since it’s a storage space, it becomes normal for the doors to be shut most of the time.
A storage container/cabinet on the other hand is a smaller storage space usually built as a piece of furniture or equipment and it can be placed inside any room in the building. Since it is portable and smaller, it is used to handle smaller items and it can be moved from one place to another. Some storage containers/cabinets have lids, others have doors while there are those that have drawers that you can pull out to access items that are inside. It’s important to note at this point that a storage cabinet can also be found inside a storage room and both storage spaces can give out strange odors if the doors are closed for a long time.
Now that we understand the distinction, let’s return to our focus which is odors from a storage room.
Whenever you open a storage room after a long time, everything usually looks fine and appears almost normal until you notice that strange smell. Sometimes this smell can come as a faint unpleasant odor while at other times it can hit you like a tsunami as soon as you open the door. The smell might be a mix of stale air or even be a bit musty. Whatever the case, you’ll notice that you’re not so comfortable with the odor in the room and if you’re like most inquisitive homeowners, the next thing that should be running on your mind is; where is this smell coming from?
You may be wondering; is there a dead rodent in the room or has an item in the room spoiled and rotten. After a thorough search, you most likely may not find any dead or rotten creatures. So where did the smell come from considering the fact that the room has been closed for a while and nothing new has been brought in. This is a question most people ask themselves even though they don’t talk much about it.
Storage rooms or any other spaces that stay closed for long periods usually develop a kind of smell that one cannot easily explain and since these areas are not used every day it becomes even easier for the issue to be ignored. The moment most homeowners close the door, they’ll forget about the smell that just hit them until the next time they have a reason to open the door again.
Why “Closed Room” Doesn’t Mean “Clean or Protected Room”
Many people assume that once a door is shut, everything inside the room is supposed to remain exactly as it was – clean and fresh – but things don’t always work like that. There’s an unwritten rule or assumption that when there’s no dust or outside air coming into a room, there shouldn’t be changes in the room but this ”no activity, no mess” rule doesn’t always apply to indoor environments because indoors spaces do not need daily use for changes to occur in them. You can close the door to a room for an eternity and you’ll still notice a drastic change whenever you decide to open the door. This is because a closed room doesn’t stop air from changing, it just stops it from moving so there’ll always be small changes happening behind the closed door. When the door is closed, the air inside the room will remain still because it has nowhere else to go. It doesn’t stop there, moisture in the space would linger and after sometime it’ll start to react with materials in the room.
So, doing nothing at all in a room is not a yardstick that there won’t be changes or that there won’t be smells in the room. And when the changes want to start, it’s not usually obvious in the beginning but as time goes by the impact of none activity will begin to increase and it’ll become more noticeable as soon as you enter the room.
A closed door is not a protected room because the stale air and moisture already present in the room are enough to cause changes within the space. The only difference here is that there’s no fresh air coming from the outside to balance things. So instead of having very clean and fresh air circulating in the room, what you’ll have is trapped air that’ll eventually become stale and start smelling in the entire space. To make matters worse, this trapped air will slowly pick up smells and particles from different materials inside the room and the more organic materials it reacts with the more the foul smell will increase.
The Role of Trapped Air
When air gets trapped in a room, it usually starts to behave differently. It doesn’t do so instantly or in a way you’ll immediately notice, instead, it changes gradually and loses its freshness slowly.
No Air Movement: If you want air to stay fresh in a room then there has to be free movement of air inside and outside the space. One way to achieve this freshness is by ensuring you open the windows and doors at all times. As new air moves in, it drives out the old air that’s holding excess moisture and carrying odors. All of these are possible in most rooms except the storage room.
When it comes to a storage room, the entire entry and exit point are usually closed and this makes it impossible for air to move in and out. The same air circulates in the room day after day.
Stale Air Build-Up: As time goes by, that air that has been sitting still will start to feel stale. It’ll gradually attract particles from materials inside the room. While it’s doing this, it’s also holding moisture within the space. After some time, all of these will combine and start giving off odors. When you open the door, the smell is usually stronger at first because it has been accumulating and undisturbed for a long time.
Moisture – The Hidden Cause of Most Odors
If there’s one culprit that you can always hold responsible when it comes to strange odors in a storage room, then it’s none other than moisture. When we talk about moisture, we’re not only referring to the obvious water that you can see from a leaking pipe or any other water source, but we’re talking about that small or hidden moisture that’s sitting quietly in the air or on surfaces in the room.
Where the Moisture Comes From: There are so many sources through which moisture can be in your storage room and one of the most common ones is the air itself. Another possible source of moisture in a storage room is slightly damp items that you kept in the room. If your home is not one of the modern ones that are built with tightly sealed ceilings and doors, then you should expect moisture to move in the air from nearby rooms that have higher humidity into your storage room. Aside from that, moisture can also move through the structure of the building. If there’s high water activities in a room very close to your storage room, the moisture in that room can soak into the walls and cause dampness on the walls of your storage room. Also, there are some houses that experience rising dampness from the ground. If your home has this issue then moisture will always be unavoidably present in the room.
Moisture doesn’t always come from complicated sources. It can also come from clothes or fabrics that are not completely dry but were stored in the storage room.
When you look at these sources individually, you’ll assume they’re not sufficient enough to cause moisture problems or lead to odors in a storage room, but when one or two of them combined, they can lead to issues in the room
Now, when moisture enters the storage room through any of the sources, why does the moisture linger? Well, the answer to this is simple; when moisture is in the air in an open place, it usually has an escape route because the air is moving and not still. This allows humidity levels to balance out. However, when moisture is in a closed space like a storage room, it doesn’t have a place to go, so it remains trapped. After circulating round the room, the moisture will look for a convenient place to settle. It can settle on fabrics, paper, woods, walls or on any available surface. Since there’s no proper airflow in the room, these materials may never have the opportunity to dry out properly and they’ll end up creating the condition for strange smells to develop. The longer the materials stay damp or wet, the stronger the smell it’ll give out.
It’s important to note that moisture can hide on a surface or inside a material for a long time without you knowing. If you want to spot moisture easily, then you’ll have to allow an expert to conduct a thorough moisture inspection in your storage room. This will help to quickly identify places where there’s dampness or where moisture is gradually accumulating.
Lack of Sunlight and Its Effect
Another reason why storage rooms have odor is due to lack of sunlight. Storage rooms are usually dark because they don’t have windows and there’s no direct sunlight facing them. Although there might be light in the room connected from your power source, most storage rooms are still kept dark because they’re not used often and there’s no need keeping it lit as this would be an extra utility bill. So, you may be wondering, how is darkness a problem and how does it even make a room smell. After all, the storage room is just a place to keep things and not somewhere you spend time or carry out any activity. Well, here are the reasons why sunlight is important:
Dark Spaces Stay Damp: When we talk about the importance of sunlight, most people focus only on the brightness that comes with it, but that’s not all there is to sunlight. When sunlight enters a space, it usually adds warmth to the place and this warmth helps to reduce moisture. How does it do this? Simple: warmth allows damp surfaces and materials to dry more quickly.
Since sunlight doesn’t get to a storage room, that natural drying process becomes almost impossible. So if there’s any moisture in the air or on stored items in the room, it’ll take longer for it to dry because there’s no warmth from sunlight. And whenever moisture stays in the air for too long, it begins to create a favorable environment for odors to develop.
No Natural Drying: Sunlight also helps to ensure natural reset within a room. Even if the sun doesn’t dry the room directly, it can heat up walls and dry it from outside. When this happens, moisture from the room will gradually reduce because some of it has evaporated from the walls.
But when there’s no sun, most materials in the room will hold onto moisture for longer periods because moisture has no way to dry out. Over time, this creates a space that is highly humid, slightly damp or less fresh and this can lead to that familiar musty smell.
So while sunlight may not look like an important factor, its absence can allow a lot more to go wrong. Sunlight is one of the simplest ways for a room to dry out and stay fresh.
Poor Ventilation and Humidity Build-Up
Ventilation is the movement of air in and out of a place. This process happens naturally when the doors and windows in a house are open. But in the case of a storage room, the door and windows are usually closed and the air in the room stays trapped for as long as the room is locked. If fresh air doesn’t replace the accumulating stale air in the room, moisture and every other thing in the room remains stuck and starts to build up slowly.
At first, you might not notice that changes are happening quietly but as time progresses you’ll begin to see real changes in the room, one of which is a stale or damp smell. The longer the room is deprived of ventilation the more the smell becomes stronger.
Everyday Items That Hold and Release Odors
When some people enter a storage room and perceive unpleasant odors, they just conclude that the smell is caused by the room itself, but this is not always so. Sometimes, the items in the room may be responsible for the smell.
Clothes, Fabrics, and Cardboard: Most of the items that people store in their storage rooms are made of materials that absorb moisture quickly. Some of the common ones are curtains, clothes, cardboard boxes, papers, and other fabrics. These materials behave like sponges and they take in moisture from the air whether the room is damp or not. Once they absorb moisture, they hold onto it and may never get dry. Over time, these damp or wet materials may gradually deteriorate or create the best environment for odor to develop.
Since cardboards are made of paper, they’ll absorb moisture from the stale air and before you know what is happening, mold has started growing on them. The cardboards may disintegrate gradually and start giving out a damp smell or you’ll just notice that it’s becoming dusty. Fabrics are also victims of stale air. Once moist air rests on a fabric, it soaks and gradually starts to smell if there’s no ventilation for a long time.
Stored Items Absorbing and Releasing Moisture: Some materials do not just absorb moisture from the air, they also release moisture back into the air. Materials like cotton, wool, linen and silk are well known for this. Some people keep their seasonal clothes in their storage room. If these clothes did not dry properly before you kept them in the room, they’ll release that moisture into the storage room gradually and this will add to the amount of moisture in the air. This repeated cycle of absorbing and releasing moisture is usually common when there’s a change in temperature in the closed storage room.
When Odor Is a Sign of Mold
Odor in your storage room can be caused by different things. Sometimes the smell might just be stale air or trapped moisture while there are times when the smell is as a result of mold growth.
Mold has a very distinct smell. Some people usually describe the smell of mold as a musty or earthy odor but the fact remains that it’s not always a strong smell – it is sometimes faint. When mold starts growing in a room, you might only notice the smell as soon as you open the door and that’s all. But as time goes by, the smell starts becoming more obvious. This is because as mold grows, it releases tiny spores that spread all over the room. During the growth process, Microbial Volatile Organic Compounds (MVOCs) are released by the mold as it feeds on materials like paper, wood or any other thing you store in the room. It is this gas (MVOC) that gives the smell you get in a mold infested room.
When mold is growing there might be no visible signs at first, no dark spots or patches, just the smell. If the smell keeps returning or is getting stronger, then it’s advisable you call a mold detection expert to carry out a thorough mold inspection.
Simple Ways to Prevent Storage Room Odors
Storage room odors are usually preventable and the good news is that you don’t need to take any complicated steps to prevent it. Most of the time, you just need to change or switch to a few simple habits and the odor issue would be history.
Let Air In From Time to Time: Don’t leave your storage room closed for too long. Even if you don’t make use of the room often, it is a good thing to open the doors once in a while. This simple step allows fresh air to come into the room and it gives moisture a chance to escape. You don’t necessarily need to open the door every day, just make sure it’s open occasionally.
Make Sure Items Are Fully Dry Before Storage: One of the easiest things you can do to create odor in your storage space is to store wet or damp items in the room. If you want to prevent it, then you have to do the reverse. Before you keep items like shoes or fabrics in the storage room, you have to make sure that they’re fully dry. If there’s the slightest amount of moisture on these items, that moisture will linger and make the material start to smell.
Create Space for Airflow: When you cram items together in the storage area there won’t be space for air to move freely. This makes it easier for moisture to stay trapped. So when arranging or storing items in the room, make sure you leave small gaps between boxes and walls. Do not pack everything too tightly and make sure furnitures are not directly placed against the wall. These little changes will help air to circulate better and there won’t be stale air or odor in the room.
Conclusion
Most homeowners forget the storage room because it’s always closed – out of sight and out of mind.
But as you’ve seen above, a closed storage space doesn’t stay the same just because it’s not being used; moisture builds up, the air changes and after some time the smells start coming.
If you notice smells in your storage room, it’s a sign that something inside the room is affecting the entire space. This something could be trapped air, moisture or even mold growth. Whenever you notice this issue, you don’t need to overthink it. There are some simple steps you can take to prevent the smell and they are; opening windows or doors for better airflow, keeping items dry before storing them and checking for hidden moisture.
If you suspect that mold is already growing in the storage room, you can take samples from the room for mold testing. This test will help determine whether mold is present or not. Once you understand what’s happening behind that closed door, it becomes easier for you to keep the space fresh and under control.
