To think more cold houses will mean more damp houses?

[NamelessNancy]

Lots of talk about delaying turning the heating on, dropping thermostats, heating people not the home. Whilst to a degree (no pun intended) that's all doable, if combined with things like drying washing indoors, won't it cause a lot more damp? Obviously I don't think we need to heat out houses so much we're wandering around in t shirts with snow on the ground outside but it's still going to be necessary to heat the buildings rather than just the inhabitants. I'm a bit worried that people are going to not only suffer with being uncomfortably cold this winter but it will mean more are exposed to damp, mouldy living conditions. No answers I'm afraid (would appreciate some if anyone else does?)

We will have to heat ours regardless as dh has severe asthma and arthiritis and ours is a 1920's semi which would quickly feel damp. There's no extra help for people like us with an unwell person where the home needs to be kept warm, as dh presses on trying to work full time even when in pain. I think the Nhs should also be worrying about an increase in people with exacerbations of respiratory problems caused by damp this winter. there are huge numbers of older people living with COPD and other chronic respiratory conditions.

Excellent post @Timeforabiscuit many people living in Victorian terraced houses have put double glazing in which is fine but you need to make sure you have air bricks and if they have a cover that can be closed then you leave that open unless it is minus outside. It is no good sealing buildings like a tomb and then keeping them cold.

If you are replacing double glazing trickle vents in the frames (left open!) in bathrooms, kitchens and perhaps the hall or the room with the heated dryer frame are a really good idea. A morning airing for 15 minutes and using an extractor fan if possible in kitchens and bathrooms is also a good idea.

With a heated airer I have found that as the clothes dry more slowly than on a radiator then, with the air bricks and trickle vents, it is all ok. It seems to add moisture to the air at a slow rate the house can deal with.

I can remember staying with rellies back in the 60's in very old farmers cottages, with no central heating. Every room had air bricks. The wind whistled through the night. The houses were not mouldy. Is it because all these bricks have been plastered over? It was always *king freezing, but they had feather beds and matteresses too, so cosy to sleep in.

I live in a modern well insulated house, but always sleep with the windows cracked open and have them open every morning, unless very wet or cold. Bathroom windows always cracked open.

Do you need to heat before opening windows in the morning? We usually have heating come on early morning (not yet, when it's cold) then leave bathroom windows open all day, shutting them before putting the heating on in the evening. Then leave bedroom windows open until afternoon on weekends. I was planning on not heating in the morning this winter as we just let the heat out anyway.

I always tell people to be wary of that advice!

A few years ago we took the "wear fluffy socks and jumpers" approach and ended up with a horrendous damp problem that destroyed some valuables, photos, things like curtains which combined with the treatment worked out far more expensive then our gas bills at that time (not even considering the cost of repainting etc to make it look ok and the things that were savable but never smelt right again)

We later took an approach of removing anything we didnt want musty and shutting up a dining room and spare room and letting them sucumb, but found the overall cost saving wasnt worth it.

Ultimately there are lots of people with no choice but to dry things inside (we have no dryer) and even may not have kitchen and bathroom extractor fans. Things like that cost a lot of money and space, as well as being not within the control of those in rented especially cheap rents. These are often the people the advice is given to and i really worry that people dont mention damp enough as a side effect of a lot of the turn off the boiler, wear jumper advice

If that advice is given people need to also be telling them not to dry clothes inside, open up multiple windows a day etc, that they need to likely buy dehumidifiers etc

I know it’s not exactly the point, but those suffering with lots of condensation- get a Karcher window vac. It gets rid of it much more quickly than using towels, and then you’re not having to wash and dry the towels, creating even more condensation.
Yes- I fully agree that houses need air and heat to keep them in good condition as well as just heating the person.

Agree. There are cheaper options available now as well- Von Haus does a good one.

Yes, @gluenotsoup the window vac is great and like you say avoids needing to dry towels which just puts the same water back out into the house. Unfortunately it's those who can't afford the outlay on things like this, dehumidifiers and ventilation systems who will be affected most. This government really don't seem to give a shit though.

When I was moving out of my very cold and draughty 1847 house, I put a large antique framed print up against the wall ready to load in my car. It was quite a sunny day and I was upset to see water forming under the glass when I went back to it. Print was ruined. Our house was well ventilated as we had stripped floor boards and open chimneys, but obviously still damp. I was guilty of drying on the radiators without running a dehumidifier. Not sure how the neighbours got on with the victorian velvet framed print I'd given them!

Mouldy walls and windows are caused by moisture in the air condensing on cold surfaces. There are only two ways to deal with this. 1) Heat the house, which both warms the cold walls and also allows the air to hold more moisture. Your air is still damp, but it’s warm and circulating rather than condensing in cold corners. 2) Reduce the amount of water vapour in the house, by both ventilating (swapping damp air inside for dry air outside) and by reducing the water vapour created (lids on saucepans, drying laundry outside etc).

Anyone saying they have to heat their house to x degrees is simply not being effective in reducing the amount of water vapour in their house. Cold houses aren’t damp if they’re unoccupied.

It’s shitty that we have to do this, but the good news is that most of the ways to reduce water vapour are cheap or free:

• Lids on saucepans (water goes down the kitchen sink drain rather than into the air)
• Quicker and cooler showers (less steam created)
• Wiping down shower surfaces with a squeegee (water goes down shower drain rather than evaporating into the air)
• drying laundry outside (if possible - and yes it dries even in cold weather)
• Opening windows. Ventilate the kitchen after cooking, the bathroom once everyone has showered, open bedroom windows once dressed in the morning. Yes it’s cold, but you don’t need these rooms to be warm once you’ve finished using them - so let them dry out.
• Shutting doors. If you’ve created a load of steam in the bathroom, keep the door shut while the extractor or window does its job - don’t let that steam into the rest of the house. Same in the kitchen.

The comment re the window vac is a good one - if you have the money to buy one. There’s no point towelling off windows and then drying the towels indoors, as the water never leaves the building.

Damp caused by condensation is very controllable. Unfortunately, controlling it through heating will be out of budget for a lot of people - but there’s still a lot you can do to reduce the amount of water vapour inside.

THANK YOU for the news about cheaper window vacs.

I held off recommending one because of the price, but they're SO much better than cloths because all that unwanted water goes down the sink not into the air again.

Much of the uk housing stock was not built to be centrally heated, after all!

No, but neither were chimneys designed to be blocked off and windows sealed with UPVC, draughts from letterboxes and doors closed off with draught draft excluders. Lack of ventilation is a major contribution to damp.

Yup

Please don’t assume I haven’t had similar experiences when replying. That is not the way that anyone should live of course.

In that situation there must have been either a roof or gutter problem.

Excellent post.

This.
In my country everyone airs the house daily, windows wide open, bedding pulled back.
Never had a problem.

My understanding is that ventilation is more important than heat.

I follow the mse diy board and often read about damp/condensation as we get the odd bit in our house. They were saying recently if you have an unused room put the radiator on the frost setting and shut the door, but leaving the window open a crack should prevent any mould.

Lots of mould is due to condensation and how we live. Whilst houses are made more airtight to save on heating costs, you lose the natural ventilation that helps with circulating the air and taking the moist air out and letting fresh air in. We invested in a dehumidifier as 5 people create a lot of moisture. You wouldn't believe how much moisture it sucks out in winter when it's harder to have the windows open all day

Not necessarily, depends on age, climate, wind exposure, construction.

Our previous home did get damp if unoccupied, unheated, unaired for a fortnight. Typical on a very exposed coastal clifftop, facing galeforce horizontal rain .

Our current home ( only 5 years younger) is in a different climate, different aspect, and constructed to a higher standard. Unoccupied and unheated for two years when we bought it, it was and is bone dry and sweet as a nut.

I think people need to learn how to ventilate homes properly. Damp isn't caused by lack of central heating, its caused by excess moisture.

We air our house out each morning. Never had any issues with damp & we keep it around 18/19 degrees generally.

Sure it'll vary from home to home how easy it is to avoid damp whilst reducing heating but my point is about numbers across the country. More colder houses will mean more damp houses, not that every house will become damp.

It was a block of flats. No insulation in the roof, no holes in the roof that let water in (a few for accidental extra airflow, but they weren't about to pay for scaffolding and roofers when the block's cold water tank directly above the bedroom hadn't fallen through the ceiling), gutters were fine on my stretch - the water running down the walls was the condensation from breathing and from it being so damn cold that the moisture in the air from outside (as there was plenty of ventilation from the holes in the walls around the windows) was also condensing on the coldest surface - the wall. I didn't mind dry cold and would always prefer to be colder than hotter in normal circumstances, but this was something else altogether.

You've seemingly only experienced where opening a window would help. In the case of that flat and in those weather conditions, there was no way it could be improved (I had windows open the rest of the year and an easterly would make the existing vents howl as it came through). I pity whoever moved into it the winter after I'd left as, although it was nice and cool up there when the weather was in the thirties, it was brutal at the end of December.

Had there also been a roof leak in my flat, that would have been worse. And would have also been met with a 'it's your fault, it's drying clothes indoors that does it (like I'd have bothered, I went to a launderette instead because I didn't want sodden work clothes going musty and mouldy and showered at a gym so I wasn't adding extra water into the air beyond breathing) - you need to open a window and we'll put a mushroom in if you can't be trusted to do that'. They've been shamed on TV because that's exactly what they said to people in other blocks of flats.

Anyhow, I moved out and now struggle with how warm my house gets in summer. But at least I won't end up with hypothermia or black and orange mould over the walls to breathe in.

Damp will cause floorboards to rot, plaster to flake, wallpaper to fall down, upvc seals to get hard and crumble, mouldy clothes and bedding, mouldy wooden furniture, mouldy kitchen cupboards and believe it or not mouldy carpets but it's often invisible on dark grey.

Can't see how fixing / replacing the above is the cheaper option.

Anti mould spray and anti damp paint is expensive in itself 😵‍💫

My house was 150 years old before it got central heating and yet it's still standing and perfectly habitable. I think we've got very used to constantly heating our homes that we forget it's a relatively recent phenomenon.

I do believe that we have probably been masking underlying problems with some of the UK housing stock by keeping them heated, but I don't think we all need to panic that if we don't keep the heating on the house will rot away.

@Baystard but I bet your house has fire places, they work for heat and for insulation. Now fireplaces are boarded up in many older houses.