How the Georgians prevented damp

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

I'm a little bit obsessed with damp at the moment.

I've especially been thinking about how to prevent it other than by leaving the heating fairly high even in unused parts of the house, and in old houses where you're limited in your options for internal or external wall insulation.

So I was wondering how people managed it, pre-central heating. Obviously there was less water being chucked into the atmosphere, pre- frequent showers and baths, and open fires are very effective in drying the air. But I was wondering about what happened in unused rooms and areas like servants' rooms where there weren't necessarily regular fires, so I've been reading about Georgian housekeeping routines and have discovered the following things:

1. Even without our amount of plumbing, they were conscious of limiting the amount of moisture that got into the air. Washing floors was disapproved of because it caused damp, so you only did it as part of the annual spring clean. In some houses the number of tea kettles was limited.

1. I don't know when the mechanism of warm air holding more water was first described, but they understood very clearly that heat drove out damp - chafing dishes burning charcoal were used in empty rooms in damp weather.

1. The main one - ventilation, ventilation and more ventilation. In one housekeeping book I read, the servants' garrets were to be 'as airy as possible', which I take to mean windows left open whenever possible. Airing rooms was part of the daily routine, along with opening and shutting the blinds to prevent light damage.

What I find so interesting about this is that was clearly an issue which they saw as needing actively managing. I think these days we tend to expect to be fairly passive in using our houses - we expect them to behave themselves whatever they do and if they don't we often tend to panic and be tempted by expensive treatments, or else want a magic product to solve the problem. I think I assumed people used to be equally passive, it was just that the buildings worked for the lifestyle - but actually, it seems, a large part of housekeeping was actually about maintaining the building itself healthily.

Wtflike I know 'breeze' sounds worse than it is!
Actually, I like the air to move, and hate a dead airless feeling in a house. I never stay in someone's house if its all closed up, I feel entombed.

I suppose basically I like to be outdoors, but have to be indoors, so have the windows open. We put wood across the bottom of the open frame and have the gap between the sashes as a draughtless ventilation. Honestly, it's not a wind tunnel.

My ideal home is a tree house or sleeping on deck.
A wooden house sounds lovely. Is it a flat pack one, where you order all the exterior and rooms to suit yourself?

Fascinating thread! I live in a Victorian house that's had some extra bits bolted on over the years. When we moved in the sashes were all knackered so we coughed up and had them all restored & draught proofed. Now they run with condensation every morning! I open them for approximately 3 hours daily come rain or snow & have not had damp problems. I do wipe them if the water has pooled on the ledge. It is cold but I do mostly housework at this time so stay warm. I'm also quite hot on airing bedding and never dry washing on radiators.

We were warned on purchase about one wall being damp but we cut away all the plants obscuring the air bricks, had regular fires & voila. No damp.

Old houses in particular need to breathe. The draughts generated by the fires are savage but you just accept it - it goes hand in hand with an older property. Character has flaws.

Oh and given that my road is full of similar houses to ours I am always at how few windows I ever see open!