Is anyone else having mould problems due to not using their heating?

[Charlize43]

I've had mould problems before on external walls but it seems more prevalent since I tried to avoid putting the heating on this year due to the cost. Trying to dry clothes indoors takes much longer for them to dry and I'm noticing a great deal of moisture building up on the windows.

AIBU - Not to put the heating on when drying clothes. In the long run, this going to cause a much bigger problem with mould and damp.

YANBU - Just keep washing the mould off with bleach or distilled vinegar and put a jumper on if you are cold. Wash your clothes less often.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

We’re carrying on with heating - I don’t want a damp house. We are on oil though which is easier in that it’s all paid for in advance.

I am trying to wash less though. So on WFH days I’m wearing tops more than once etc. The tumble drier goes on for towels and bedding until it’s less wet weather too. But I’m washing less often.

I appreciate though that although we are feeling the pinch and making choices we aren’t as up against it as some and can afford to have the heating on, albeit less than before.

There are so many factors though that will affect how much humidity you are likely to generate in a house.

If you are only 1 person in a relatively large house then it's going to be much less of an issue if you are 4 people in a smaller one. How much the house construction allows air circulation. How much washing is dried inside. How many showers there are per day. Whether there is open pan cooking putting water vapour into the atmosphere, whether there is extraction. Whether there is dehumidification. Whether you live up north where the temperatures can be colder. Whether you have double glazing. The list goes on.

I don't have much of a humidity problem, but that is because I have a relatively large amount of space per person, modern house construction and am careful to make sure I don't do stuff that adds to the humidity. But I my guess is that if I added another 1-2 people and all that that brings (more washing to dry, more water vapour being breathed out, more showers) then it could start to be an issue.

Only industrial ones.

You can get small ones. I don't know how effective they are though.

Yes - my mixed cycle only has 1000 rpm as the default, which is useless, and you can't make it higher on that cycle. I run it again at 1600 and they come out way drier.

Appreciate you can get smaller ones but having a machine just for the sake of it is not my point. Condensate should be outside that’s why I’ve always said there is a much easier way to deal with it.

Dehumidifiers don't need to be massive or power hungry to have an impact on normal levels of moisture. Small ones cost very little to run.

We got this one about 6 months ago as our bathroom smelled damp.

https://amzn.eu/d/gV173ox

Running if for a few days with door and window closed resolved the issue. I now use it in the airing cupboard and dry most of the laundry there. (After a double spin) Works in 24h to bone dry.

I leave it on most of the time. It's only 40W so if you are on the current price cap of 34p then it's less than 32p per 24 hours constant use. I empty it every couple of days.

Noticed mould in a cold corner of a cupboard on an external wall last week as we've not been using the heating much. I cleaned it off with the bleach remover stuff and put this in the cupboard for a couple of days. Wouldn't be without it and thinking of buying a second for this winter to protect the house.

Exactly so. It’s not 8nevitaboe because of the country it might be issues with a particular house, or with ways of living in it. It’s not to do with the climate per se.
I do think people refusing to have the heating in at all this year is contributing though. Yes, it’s gone up, but there’s a rebate to help to a degree. If you had it on at all last year you can have it 9n for some if the time this year without it costing more. In fact MartinLewis calculated that if your energy bills were less than £125 a month last year you’ll actually pay less this year (for the same heat).

We’re getting mould. I literally said to OH yesterday how we’d lived here for 7 years and never had this issue before but then remembered we’d normally have put the heating on 6 weeks ago. I didn’t think it would make such a difference so quickly. We have 2 people in the home with asthma so might give up on our no heating stance much quicker….we’ve just bought a dehumidifier hoping it will help.

I've lived in 6 different houses. The oldest was 150 years old, youngest was 1960s. Guess which had the damp problem!

A: The '60s house. (The 5th house i've lived in).

It was the only one i didn't own (rented for 4 years)
It was the only one which had no central heating, storage heaters instead.
It was the only one which had had a damp course breach (gravel spread all around the house higher than the damp course)(we told the LL. They ignored us. We fixed it for them)
It was the only one with shitty window frames which needed repairing.

I'll be honest - if i hadn't have lived in house no.5 i'd have been reading this thread with a bit of smugness. But now i know what it's like to live in a damp house - 4 hellish winters in house no.5 . And i know that nothing in my repertoire did stopped it Hours googling about mould and causes of mould and how to get rid. We tried everything.

In all the other houses i've lived in there's been no battle. As pp said; Heating on couple of times a day in winter. Windows open a crack in the bathrooms/bedrooms year round unless it's in the minus's outside. Drying clothes near radiators if it's raining, outside if poss. Never a speck of mould or damp. And one of those houses (the oldest one) we were pretty squashed - 5 of us and loads of pets in a little cottage with no tumble drier.

In house no.5 it wasn't enough to have good habits. Despite them all, and despite noticing and fixing the damp course breach in the first summer, come October every year i was battling with bleach and mould sprays and peeling wallpaper. I was in tears over it regularly I was preg with DD4 in that house and when she was born i became worried to death about her breathing in mould spores. I was like a mad thing everyday looking for signs of the back mould creeping back onto the walls under the windows ect. Wiping and worrying. Buying dehumidifiers and trays of salt and having regimes of windows open/not open. It was cold and damp and fucking depressing and i was SO glad to eventually leave.

Older houses are often draughtier and less well insulated with higher ceilings which naturally helps with ventilation I think. My parents house was built in the 1840s and they've never had a problem with mould, despite them not opening all the windows religiously and drying clothes inside without a dehumidifier.

Our 1960 house has concrete floors and lots of loft insulation, low ceilings etc none of which helps.

I’ve ordered a the Meaco 12litre low energy one, it’s arriving tomorrow and I’m excited to get it on!!

Thank you for starting this thread! If I hadn’t seen the suggestion of a dehumidifier I would have never bought one. After reading lots of reviews of the Meaco one I’m confident it’s going to help my damp issues!

I hope you’re able to purchase one soon and sort your issues out 🤞

@Gem123J
Can I ask where you've ordered it from? Everywhere I've looked seems to be sold out for now.

We have an ecoair dehumidifier and it's fantastic at taking water out the air. However I've found this year it's just far too expensive to run as much as we need to. I've needed to have it on constantly over the last couple of days and have been shocked at the price.

@peoplearepeople

It’s actually the MeacoDry ABC 12l I’ve ordered! The other Meaco wasn’t available for delivery until early Dec. Mixed up the names! The reviews for this one were also all good, 9.4 whereas the other Meaco was 9.1.

I ordered it off of appliancesdirect.co.uk

Thank you so much. Off to research that model now! Exciting times. 😂

This

Could you afford a de-humidifier or a heated airer with a cover? Both are supposed to be good

@peoplearepeople

I’m honestly stupidly excited for it to arrive 😂I also think I drove my husband nuts last night reading out every single review! Maybe that’s why I’ve been told to order it last night so I’d shut up!! How times have changed with what excites us!!

Those moisture readings might be false and intended to sell you damp proof course 'solutions' that you don't need and that will damage your house. The meters test conductivity, not moisture per se, and are not supposed to be used the way they are. Old building plasters and paint produce false positive results because of the materials they're made of. www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/the-fraud-of-rising-damp.html