Musty smell in lanai

[ddumas10]

Anyone have ideas on how to get rid of the musty smell in our enclosed airconditioned lanai.

[HiHoSteveO]

Anyone have ideas on how to get rid of the musty smell in our enclosed airconditioned lanai.

The only way I know of is to find and fix the source of the excessive moisture in there.

Either water/condensation is somehow getting trapped somewhere (like in window or floor channels) and can't dry out relatively quickly, or there is condensation forming inside the lanai from changes in humidity/temperature levels and not drying out quickly. Maybe even some moisture is entering from an unsealed concrete lanai floor.

I don't know your situation or how you're using the AC system, but my first suspicion (if the lanai is always closed up from the outdoors), would be that the air conditioning is cooling the room OK, but not running long enough or circulating the air enough to remove the moisture too. The air in the lanai, although cool, becomes stagnant and moist. Then if you turn off the AC and close the sliding glass doors for the night, the trouble might begin there. If there was a way to let outdoor air circulate in the lanai when unused, (especially during the day when the air is drier) that's where I'd start. That, and buy a couple of combination temperature/humidity gauges to monitor the actual humidity level out there.

[villagetinker]

You might want to have one of the home inspection agencies take a look at your lanai. I used Frank DE Angelo, he is excellent. The previous poster mentioned several areas to look at. I would suggest that you look at the insulation in the attic of the lanai, was sufficient and the correct type added? I believe the building code requires that a vapor barrier be installed if the lanai is to be used as living space, aka air conditioned.
You may also need to contact the contractor that did the work.
Good luck.

[Chatbrat]

Does your a/c in the lanai have a return--if it was T'd off your existing duct work- the odds of a return are nil.

[jnieman]

Anyone have ideas on how to get rid of the musty smell in our enclosed airconditioned lanai.

It might help to run the ceiling fan or floor fan in the room to move the air around.

[stroglass]

Place a pan of charcoals in the room we had a issue with a bad smell in our lani and that did the trick not a trace left