Sorry - very boring - wardrobe dehumidifiers

[Mull]

Hi, has anyone experience with these?

Our house tries to be a bit damp / mouldy if we don’t keep on top of washing certain bits of wall, under bay windows etc. It’s an old house, we love it, doesn’t cause any major problems.

I had a good clear out of my built in wardrobe a few weeks ago, recycled loads of old clothes and found stuff I could now wear again (have lost some weight recently). I had to wash all these clothes as they smelt musty but they weren’t actually mouldy.

I decided to try some wardrobe dehumidifiers which are bags of plastic beads that collect water in a separate bag area. I have been AMAZED how much water they have collected. I’ve had to change them 3 times in about 5 weeks. However I’m concerned:

• This is expensive to keep buying more bags
• They must be awful for the environment as full of plastic and chemicals. I haven’t even tipped the water down the sink because of the chemicals so the whole lot is just going in the bin
• WHERE is this much water coming from? We’ve lived here for 12yrs and surely that much damp would have been far more noticeable? I would have thought all my clothes would have disintegrated with mould?

I’ve changed them again this morning but going to keep the door open 24/7 and see if that makes a difference.

Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing and can advise if that much water is reasonable and also what other (better, cheaper, less damaging?) products I could try?

Bump?

Our house can get damp if we don't open windows, keep warm in winter and if we dry washing all over the house.
We also were advised not to have built in wardrobes, esp on an external wall.
We have free standing wardrobes which are 2 inches away from the wall.
We do not have a dehumidifier, we can cope with making sure we do the above.
Ours is also an older house. Lovely large rooms but comes with issues like keeping warm in winter.

Just buy a proper electric dehumidifier, more effective and better for the environment than these throw away things

I have a theory that these things attract more moisture into wardrobes so I stopped using them. I bought a dehumidifier for the whole room and that helped.
Wardrobes are usually cold inside so the moisture is attracted to the cold surface within.

Thanks for the responses. The built in wardrobe pre-dates us buying the house but it does attach to an outside wall so sounds like that was a bad idea.

Maybe a dehumidifier unit would be best. We have a few rooms that get issues so maybe we could rotate it around them?

I wonder this too! The amount of water in them has been unbelievable. If the wardrobe had always had that much dampness in it then surely there would have been obvious issues?

take out the wardrobes
treat the wall, plasterboard, whatever
buy freestanding wardrobes from IKEA
buy a dehumidifier now before the prices increase in the Autumn
when they are suddenly in short supply
try to have a dressing room,
ie
not sleep (breathe) in the same room as your stored clothes