Dehumidifiers.

[ilove2patch]

Have you got one? I am going to get one but wonder whether to get a bigger one for the whole house or two smaller ones to have one upstairs & one down. It's a big 4 bed house. Any advice would be welcome.

[chickengrandma-2008]

Oops!  I was going to reply and then changed my mind but I somehow sent it by mistake!!

My daughter has one and I was going to ask her and then I realised they've all gone to the dentist just now.  I'll ask her later.

[ilove2patch]

Thanks.:) SIL has advised me to get one but I am not sure one on the top landing will do the downstairs too although I never close the doors.

[**towery**]

what is causing the damp humid nesses?  my sister had one for upstair mainly,  years ago though

[ilove2patch]

It's an old house. The back kitchen & back bedroom are single skin walls. I don't see any condensation. Windows are never wet but the corners of the rooms get a bit of mould & the wardrobes on the outside walls smell a bit damp. 

[aernethril]

If this is a semi-permanent problem, you might be better to get advise first because if you have to run it/them regularly, it's going to push up your electricity bill.

It may be a lot cheaper and more effective in the long run to get the walls tanked on the inside.

Oh, and if it's only in one side or end of the house, using one big one is probably not going to work as efficiently and may even dry out areas that are perfectly ok otherwise.

[cloud_castle]

Oh don't you just love old houses!

We have a similar situation, old solid granite house in mild, wet Cornwall.

It sounds to me as if the problem is similar to old houses here, especially with granite/stone houses which don't have a cavity wall, it's called thermal bridge condensation. Ventilation and heating is one way to deal with it - but we find it's not enough just to do that - we only ever close the windows when it's blowing a gale and it is well heated, but we still have a problem.  We get it underneath the windows where the granite is considerably thinner there than  the three foot thick walls.These bits of the walls (happens on outside walls and especially corners) get colder than the rest of the house and therefore cause condensation when the outside conditions are right.  It could be penetrating or rising damp, but that would be more noticable on all external walls (rising damp only rises to 3', so anything that is above that height is probably penetrating damp.

I'm assuming you have a damp-proof course (we don't) and have no rising damp apart from on one interior wall that is being treated, due mailnly to a solid floor with no DPM underneath and it's leaching up the wall.

Tanking is one way to go, but tends to break down after not too long, hugely disruptive to do properly - removing all the plaster, two coats in opposite directions, replaster etc. - just been down the route of looking at this 'solution'.

A dehumiudifier will help (we run one constantly and they are not that epensive to run at all), but better still would be to dry line the walls with insulated plasterboard, skim and decorate as normal. 

[ilove2patch]

It's an end terrace so one side & the back that's a problem. No way I could afford to have the rooms tanked. Not so bad in the summer as I have all the doors & windows open. 

[ilove2patch]

I have very good heating & the house is lovely & warm. I might get one for upstairs & see how much water it removes.

[peteryola]

Oh dear, dampness. I've seen quite enough of that last year - the attached photograph - of an upstairs room - shows what happens when cavity wall insulation fails in storms with horizontal driving rain for months on end! Ended up with having the insualtion removed in the autumn under the guarantee scheme at no cost to ourselves ( the guarantee on this sort of thing runs for 25 years, we were only half way through that )and I have now more or less finished the anti mould treatment and the repainting. Almost every room in the house was affected! It was a right pain keeping on top of the mould growth while the storms were still ongoing. The good news is the cavity wall company have said they will refund my costs on the mould killer, anti mould paint and colour paints.

[mustavaquid]

Probably best to have one for each floor. A small one will do for even a large house but it'll take much longer to grab the moisture from the areas furthest from it and will need emptying & air filter cleaning more often. Rather than buying new, ask friends and family if they have a used one for sale and look to local auction rooms too. I've bought several over the years from my local auction room, 'house clearance' ones and they've all been good. I've paid no more than about £15 each for them and I do remember getting one for £8 just one week after buying another for £15. Such low prices I couldn't resist 'stocking up'. New, they would cost about £200 each.  ( Good auction rooms will check that they are working OK or let you plug in and check them yourself before the sale. It only takes a few minutes to hear and feel it running and cooling the air to condense the moisture.) They've all been EBAC, which is probably the best known brand and all on the small / medium size but done the job perfectly well. I sold most to friends for a small profit and still have at least two kicking about around the house. I don't e them much now, maybe just a few days a year when the air seems a bit moist inside because of excess rainfall. Although they do of course cost money to run, a lot of that is recouped because dry air is easier ( cheaper ) to heat so your heating system works that little bit less. Because they are basically a small fridge they are normally very reliable and long living.

  If your wardrobes are freestanding, pull them away from the wall so as to give a better airflow. If they are built in then think about fixing thick sheets of polystyrene or similar insulation on to the wall inside the unit. It can of course be decorated.  Upstairs bathroom? That's most likely where the moisture is coming from to cause the bit of mould in the bedroom. Put a dehumidifier outside the bathroom, being very careful not to create a trip hazard with trailing cables anywhere but especially near the top of a staircase, and capture the moisture near to its source. The same applies with a tumble dryer if it doesn't vent to outside, stick a dryer near it and capture the moisture before it spreads through the house, remembering always that doors and windows should be closed when running a dehumidifier as you don't want to try drying out the whole planet.

[ilove2patch]

That is interesting & helpful Musta. Thank you.:)