How can you slow down or prevent condensation on windows

[Squaretiles]

I woke this morning and the window in my room was covered in a film of wet. I opened the window fully and an hour later it still didn't evaporate and I had to take kitchen paper to the window to dry it all up. That's not a good task when I am running out the door to work.

Is there any way condensation on windows can be slowed down or prevented.

I do have a dehumidifier ordered and I hope to run that over nights and maybe with the window closed.

But sometimes I might take the dehumidifier and plug it in, in the kitchen to dry clothes on a rack.

How can I prevent condensation.

I have some kitty litter in the window sill in the hope that will soak up some wetness some might change it to salt.

Good tips and advice already, so i would have said similar things.
I have this on my middle windows of bay in bedroom, the whole lot is/was rotten, the landlord because of safety issues with the side windows the whole bay was/was wood and old sash) he went and 🤦‍♀️ chopped the two side windows out, put in double glazing, and built the frames back up with timber 🤦‍♀️
So the middle two old sash frames/glass are still there, there are gaps and the wood is rotten/gets stiff and stuck when trying to open. The glass is actually loose in the bottom frame where the wood is old, so these two windows are dripping since it started to get cold.
To me this is more about the cold against the warm, and cold/dampness seeping through because of the state of the windows 🤷🏻‍♀️
I also need to do a better job of removing/drying it but like someone else said, not an ideal job in the mornings.

You can get £3.80 hygrometers from eBay with free P&P. They're absolutely amazing. We were waking up with 89% humidity in the bedroom and very painful achy joints.

Got trickle vents fixed & keep them open
Used indoor thermal paint
Got a dehumidier
Windows WIDE open for 25 mins every morning
Bedding folded back to air
Regular low level heating

And now the worst it gets is 67% on a rainy day in Cornwall. 😊

Crap sorry for my typos!

Can anyone recommend a window vac?
I read some reviews on one of the karcher versions and they said that due to the size of the unit and it needing to be upright to work it didn’t work very well at the bottom of the window.

Autumn and spring are terrible for this. We always sleep with the windows either wide open or cracked, but it's still a problem. When it's bad I add 10min to my morning running around all the windows wiping them down with towels.

@shamelesss
We got a karcher one on Amazon for £37, I'm obsessed. Even Hoovers up all the splashes from toddler bath. With the bottom of the window but I drag the water up then Hoover it. Takes minutes to do upstairs when we have condensation rather than faffing about with masses kitchen towels or wiping it off with a towel and the moisture just stays in the house anyway. We Hoover it all up after hot baths on eve rather than that moisture being in the room and having the window open for hours when it's getting colder

@shamelesss
Ours also works sideways, it's just the very bottom bit of the window where there's a tiny bit left

Get an extractor fan fitted.

When we got new windows we stopped getting condensation. They are better insulated so the glass doesn't get as cold and in turn it means less condensation. Both old and new windows are double glazed, but the new ones are better.

I can also recommend getting a PIV put in. Price range £300-£500 plus cost for electrician to install.

Warm air holds moiture. Cold air doesnt. So when the temperature falls, the moisture settles onto the coldest surfaces of the room.

Windows are usually coldest, particularly if they're single glazed, or older double glazing, and/or you use good curtains or blinds. Hence they run with condense.

Best option is to manage moisture levels inside - extractor fans, dong dry washing indoors without ventilation, try and avoid big temperature swings, ventilation, run a dehumidifier.

If appropriate, make the windows less cold - secondary glazing, upgraded double glazing.

Karcher. Use it with downward movements across the width of the window, then one sideways sweep across the bottom. Which is the same movements as window cleaners with their blades. We got the one with two blades but we never use the normal sized blade, only the smaller. It fits the smaller top openers better and I can't be bothered with swapping blades all the time.

They might be in the black Friday sale if you are put off by the price 😉

I use a karcher window vac. Windows are triple glazed and open every night - full of condensation this morning for the first time this Autumn.

@calishire can i ask. How much did this up for electric bill. And is it noisy

@Sleeplessinseattle234 it can be loud but I also think it depends how sensitive to noise you are. Ours seems to change the noise level and I'm not sure why. We have this in a holiday cottage so tbh I'm not sure how much it adds to the electric bill. We didn't get one that heats the air but I sort of wish we did as it is a blast of cold air on the landing and we don't have a radiator in the space. The cottage is grade 2 listed and we spent a ton of money on new wooden windows so it really seemed worth it as we didn't want them rotting from water damage and didn't think guests would wipe down the windows which is what I do in my own home.

I work in double glazing and this time of year lots of people find they have this problem. It's usually to do with the coating on the glass called planitherm. Because it is an energy efficiency glass that is designed to keep heat in and cold out, the change in temperature outside to inside (especially if you have the heating on inside and the temperature outside has dropped) causes this condensation. For me personally I always opt for just standard glass when I have windows so I don't get this problem 😅

I slept last night with the curtains open a d the window slightly open and the window was much less wet this morning. There was oy a small section of condensation. I do t know if it helped or not.

Yep, PIV unit is your best bet - forces the moisture -laden air out of the weak parts of the building and replaces with fresh air. Drier air is cheaper to hear than moist air (requires less energy to get up to same temperature) so there always used to be a decent offset between running costs of the unit Vs savings on heating bills. That may have changed slightly now with the higher energy costs but will still be the case to an extent (I used to work in this industry but don't anymore)

Try a Karcher window vacuum to hoover up all the condensation then you can pour it down the drain. I run a dehumidifier set to keep the humidity below 60% and it switches on and off as needed. I have it on a plug in timer to turn it off at night though as it was waking me up if it switched on during the day. Do you dry clothes inside or have a lot of plants in the house that might raise the humidity.

I do t dry clothes in my room.

It rained so much this summer it was so hard to get laundry dry outside most of the time. There is a clothes rail in the kitchen and in the hall. I hang the laundry in the kitchen but I make sure the windows are open, even over night and sometimes during the day or evening I will use the cooker extractor fan too. That's only if I can't get laundry dry outside.

I do t have any plants but I am half thinking about getting a plant that may reduce water and humidity indoors and the plant can take up water or condensation from the window.

Is it cost effective running the dehumidifier, I was always under the impression you needed one with a decent voltage to extract anything, so I'm just wondering if there are any new ones out that now take less energy to run, especially if running it a lot, my bedroom is terrible because of the windows, I think I have already posted about that.

According to Currys they aren't expensive to run at £1-2 per 24 hours. Mine is switched on all day but it has a humidity sensor so it only starts extracting when the humidity rises above 60% so it's off more often than it's on if you see what I mean. At certain times of year it doesn't come on at all during the day. Without it, we get black mould growing on all the windows.

Salt in a bowl on the window ledge. It’s miraculous.

£1 - 2 per day would add £60 to £120 to my bi monthly bill.

THIS ⬆️

The condensation in our house was bad no matter what we did. Dehumidifier running all day, windows cracked even though it was cold out, windows thrown open when cooking etc. It didn’t touch the sides.

One of these units in the loft cured it virtually overnight. Worth every penny.