To think in a cold damp climate there is only so much we can possibly change?

[SamBeckettslastleap]

Fuck you Jeremy.

I have layers I have hats, we have covers on the sofas to hide under. I'm not even cold with these measures.

But the house is damp, every morning I am wiping water and mould. I've had to put the heating on to try and stave it off.

Don't tell me to cut down my meagre use when your friends light tennis courts and heat swimming pools.

This is going to be sweary, but:

PERHAPS THE STUPID TORY CUNTS COULD HAVE FUCKING INSULATED A FEW HOUSES IN THE LAST TWELVE YEARS?

Wankers.

Dehumidifier work to help it actually be warmer as in the damp, you are heating the moisture first then the air. If you remove the moisture, a house/rooms heat better and more efficiently so probably negligible amount of extra energy used - as potentially less heating required if your house is dry.

We have an old three storey house we rent, make sure it's ventilated but also run a 20L dehumidifier all day (not night as although quiet just a little to noisy to sleep with). It's outside the bathroom so instantly after a shower or kids bath you can see the humidity rise on the screen and then lower after awhile.

@Jewel1968 is sounds like you may have a Desiccant dehumidifier..they warm the air they blow back out quite significantly. Copied the next bit to explain why.

They blow out warmer air than compressor types because they require a heating element to restore the desiccant material within the device. This causes them to blow out nice toasty air and makes them an ideal candidate for drying laundry or heating a home

Hmm so I read the other day that in Qatar they pump air con into the streets! Yep, they try and make the streets cool for people to walk on. Because hey electric is apparently super cheap over there! Well great, we should freeze cos hey the environment while cool air is being blown into the desert! I give up!

November is always the worst month for high humidity, as we go into winter the outdoor humidity drops, and everywhere is not as damp.

with regard to it feeling warmer when the humidity is lower, we definitely experience this too, humid air definitely feels colder.

I think dehumidifiers are pretty low cost to run. Really interesting what posters have said explaining why it feels warmer. It's very noticeable. And the point made about a dry house costing less to heat. Really interesting.

I didn't think my house was that damp until I used the heat less.

Hmm so I read the other day that in Qatar they pump air con into the streets!

They're pretty profligate with usage but they don't quite go that far!
There are certain outdoor venues like cafes or whatever where they have these cold mist things to keep the patrons cool, kind of the inverse of the big gas heaters you get outside places in colder climates.

They don't actually cool the literal streets though. Although admittedly everyone does drive everywhere.

If it’s cold (say below 10) and foggy damp outside should you still open windows during day for ventilation, anyone able to advise? Thanks

I grew up very poor on the 80s, no money for heating. We had a draughty single glazed house. White fluffy mould grew around the window and caused the wallpaper to fall off. Black mould grew along the outside wall of my bedroom you could put your clothes in the wardrobe or they would get black/green mould on them too. The house smelled bad. It was cold, 2 duvets and blankets on your bed and one electric fire. It’s a miserable way to live we never played in our bedrooms in winter we sat around the electric fire.

I swore when I grew up and had my own children I’d always have a warm house and I’m very lucky that I can turn the heating on and not worry about it. No person in this country should be sitting in 2022 in a cold, damp house scared to turn their heating on.

Yep, mould in all the bedrooms here despite dehumidifier and airing the rooms regularly. To add injury, we don't have windowsills (don't ask 🙄) and the matt wall paint where the windowsill should be is all soaked and now flaking off all over the floor underneath.

There is a unit you can fit in your loft, a positive input ventilation unit; you fit a vent in the ceiling, usually on the landing and the unit pushes filtered warm ( assuming a well insulated roof) dry air through the vent. They are very energy efficient, less than 20 watts. They cost around £300. A competent diyer could install one but they do need a fused spur for power.

I've got one of those Borg hasn't made the difference it claimed to do. Still black mould, I think it helps but doesn't solve. Possibly the roof isn't as insulated as it could be but they isn't for want of trying.

@badgermushrooms very good point.

Things I have found make a difference - a hand-held window vacuum to hoover the condensation off the windows in the morning, a standing desk to make me keep moving and warmer than hunched in a chair. Dehumidifier next to heated airer, clothes hanging outside if even a bit of wind to take the edge off. Electric blankets. Not quite yet at the level of woolly hats indoors yet, sainvg that joy till Jan.
Big old draughty damp house here. Through flow of air in the morning, open up windows and doors, get rid of our night breath and hoover the windows dry. Then close doors and keep to a room or two, kids come home build a fire, I bore them to death with tales of how it was like this when I was growing up, ice on the inside of the windows etc etc so they go to bed to escape me, warm with an electric blanket on for an hour, the lucky one has the cat.
I get out for a walk twice a day with the dog, keeping active is really helpful.
We're all electric, no central heating but luckily we do have solar panels. So we whack stuff on during a sunny day and look forward to April/May when our bills drop to £0/day instead of £10+/day.

I've been filling old socks full of salt and putting them on the window ledges. It's stopping my condensation.

Might try it behind the wardrobes where I know mould can grow

I’m fine with the temperature, but the damp is horrible.

I have to take down pictures to clean away mildew, every corner is turning black. I have a dehumidifier, I open windows but nothing actually works except heating. We’re not terraced and the side wall is cold and damp.

I’m just re budgeting to heat before the mould becomes a massive issue

I stayed in a rather tatty hotl Monday night, the heating was on all night, the radiator valve was broken so I couldn't turn it down/off had to open a window. Never have the heating on in the bedrooms at home. Some people/businesses don't seem to care about their gas/electric bills.

I’m paying £800 a month to heat my old house (nearly 200 years old). Live in a conservation area and also a B listed house so very limited in insulation - no modern windows for example or solar panels as not allowed. My parents, who live with me, and my husband, are disabled so need a certain amount of heating. We all are layering up etc. We have Stoov infra red cushions and heated blankets. I have heating on 6 hours a day as opposed to 12 in previous years. Bedrooms are damp with black mould for the first time. Really worrying as my mum has advanced COPD so lungs already compromised. I wipe the mould off using a spray every week. I’m using a dehumidifier. We are reasonably warm in ourselves. It’s still damp. It’s still destroying the fabric of our home.

I've got heating on and dehumidifier going. Actually our bills haven't been as bad as I feared. I'm another one that grew up in a cold, damp house, and heating will be the last thing to go for me.

Where does the filtered warm dry air come from ?

If the government were serious about trying to conserve energy, they would be doing things like asking businesses to turn off their lights when they are closed and turning down the heating in public buildings, rather than seeing people trying to live in cold mouldy conditions.

Its just like being in school. The teacher bollocks the class, but the ones who hear the message loudest are not the ones who need to be hearing it, they are the ones who are already doing their best. The ones who need to hear it still don't give a fuck, no matter how loud the teacher shouts.

We as a global population need to move away from fossil fuels urgently, especially coal, or most of humanity will suffer, sooner than we think, due to climate change. That is science, not ideology. We cannot control what China or Russia do but we can control what we do. And it can make a global difference: the rampup of solar energy demand in Europe through subsidies did bootstrap the demand for solar panels from China that are now being installed all over the world.

There are other policies that can address the impact of high energy costs on households. Perhaps the first X units of energy per household should be subsidised for everyone; this would disproportionately help lower-income households. The UK has high inequality of wealth and income. High income from work is already pretty well-taxed, so there is no way to get around it, we need more taxation of income and gains from investments. That means more tax on capital gains, treatment of private equity carried interest as the ordinary income that it is (so higher rates), and fewer loopholes by which tax on investment gains and income can be deferred or avoided.

People with wealth won’t all move to Monaco provided they are taxed without being vilified. Many of them worked hard for their wealth and may have also created jobs as well as valuable goods and services. But, income from work is taxed so much more heavily than investment income/gains, and this just does not make sense, nor does it seem fair.

We put the heating on for the first time two nights ago. We've started seeing mould around the house and we've never had mould before

Not having the heating on is slowly going to start causing damage to the house so we're just using it sparingly

I'm pretty sure the use of air con to keep places cooler is now having a bigger impact than those that using energy to heat homes.

But, income from work is taxed so much more heavily than investment income/gains, and this just does not make sense, nor does it seem fair.

agree with this, it's completely disproportionate