Condensation

[feelathome]

Hi ,I live in a house with mostly double glazing, apart from glass panels in the front door.

Every window gets soaking wet with condensation every day.

Does anyone have ideas how to stop this happening?

thanks

Open your windows in the morning and give the house a good airing, or if you can keep a couple of windows open a crack all day. Try to limit drying clothes in the house. Get a dehumidifier.

thanks for that.
It just seems pointless spending time and money installing insulation in the house, just to leave the windows open. Oh well, nothing I can do about it, i suppose.

You don't have to leave the windows open for that long. Maybe 30 minutes? Yes it lets some heat out but the insulation is still worth it! If you want to invest in a de-humidifier, that will solve the problems without opening windows but check how much electricity it will use to run.

The main cause of condensation, damp and mould in UK homes is people who drape wet washing around the house and over radiators.

This contributes a vast amount of water; if it is not all ventilated away, the home will always be wet.

Piglet I've read that about washing but where are we meant to dry it? Tumbler expensive to run and some clothes can't go in, and if it's pissing it down damp outside what is one to do?

we get condensation when it's really cold outside, i go round with a squeegee and a towel in the morning. leaving windows open, just a crack, really does help though.

Pippinintherain

It is preferable to hang your washing outside, if there is a way it can be done, such as under a carport or similar, or in a vented tumble drier. However I accept that the one may be difficult, and the other costs in the region of 40p a load, so the only other suggestion I know is to put an airer or roll-away line over the bath, turn on the bathroom extractor, and shut the bathroom door or window. This creates suction which prevents the water vapour diffusing throughout the house. The constant airflow will in time dry the washing. A typical bathroom extractor uses about 20Watts, so will run for 50 hours on one unit of electricity costing 14p, so the cost is trivial.

If you just open the window instead, the wind may not blow the moisture out, and it may blow it back into the house.

Thank you Piglet, that makes sense now I've read it

Will be doing that later.

"If you just open the window instead, the wind may not blow the moisture out, and it may blow it back into the house."

Surely if the outside air is cooler than inside, it will still lower the relative humidity though?

We had awful problems with condensation in our house but opening windows didn't work. We've ended up getting a dehumidifier and it's a lot better. The only problem now is that it seems to have gone the other way and I constantly have a dry tickly cough.

"Surely if the outside air is cooler than inside, it will still lower the relative humidity though?"

yes, that's a good reason for opening windows in the other rooms, which will ventilate the rest of the house without risk of driving damp air from the bathroom into the house.

Buy a dehumidifier. I got one from argos for about £90 and its brill, sucks my house dry :)

Another vote for a dehumidifier. Making the house less damp will make it feel warmer and our washing dries so fast we don't use the tumble drier much anymore. Ours is being repaired at the moment and I've noticed how slowly the washing dries without it!
Opening the windows helps a lot- I open up the small windows upstairs and leave them open for the morning as we're never upstairs then anyway. Remember to use your extractors when cooking, bathing, showering etc as well to let that moisture out.

What kind of dehumidifier have you guys got? Am interested. Is it noisy? Cheap to run?

Do you just need one dehumidifier then? We have condensation in all of our rooms (upstairs and downstairs). Has been so much worse since we had the cavity walls done . If you plug it in in one room downstairs will it still help the whole house?? Sorry if the answer is obvious.

We used to have a problem with this in the flat we lived in. We got little troughs with some sort of crystals in them and put them on the window sills and it worked a treat. They are for sale on Amazon and in Tesco and Poundland. I am not sure how safe they would be if you have very small children who could eat the crystals though.

Have a look around your windows too. Lots of them have vents which can be opened above them. It is not as much as opening the window but it does allow the house to breathe.

nappy

"We have condensation in all of our rooms (upstairs and downstairs)."

Do you drape wet washing around the house and over radiators?

I heard that leaving a bowl of ice near your windows prevents condensation, as the warm air hits the ice instead of the surface of the window. More info here

www.blackpool.gov.uk/nr/rdonlyres/6d0a1297-4f96-425d-b62a-f302a13b9d43/0/dealingwithcondensation.pdf

Sorry for the late reply. We do dry washing downstairs, and tend to leave bathtowels on radiators if they've only been used once or twice. I do tumbledry but there are 5 of us so lots of washing to do and always bits which can't be tumbledried.

Roll on the better weather so I can line dry.

wet washing draped around the house is the main cause of condensation, damp and mould in UK houses.

If you have a bathroom extractor fan, you could hang it in there with the door closed and the fan running until it is dry.

Otherwise you are doomed to condensation and damp.

sorry.