How to cope with a musty, mould-prone house over winter?

[TheSecretOfCake]

Short of moving, as we can't

Our house is a bit odd, no central heating and fairly scruffy throughout (paintwork, finish, fixtures and fittings as cheap as possible etc)

We have gas fires in every room but generally only use the one in the living room as it's all open plan with upvc windows and doors, so heats up pretty well. Never use the gas fires upstairs as worry kids will fiddle with them, also they heat up the rooms too much and it gets sweltering.

The upstairs rooms are pretty prone to mould/mildew in winter, both outside walls can't have any furniture against them or the walls and furniture start to smell musty.

We have radiator covers over both gas heaters upstairs, both painted and varnished but as they are on this outside wall they smell so much that it's all I can smell when i go in the room. No visible mould or mildew, just an ingrained musty smell.

One end of my bed was against the outside wall, mattress is fine but the wood of the bed has now caught the musty smell. Argh!

I'm struggling to think of ways to keep on top of this. The windows already need a weekly scrub to get mildew off, now this, its bloody exhausting! Not to mention unhealthy..

The corner with the steps is the biggest problem but I think that has been exacerbated by a leaking bend in the drainpipe from the roof.

it will be fairly easy to put an extractor, ducted if necessary, to draw the moist air from above the worktop.

However there are two problems:

If the room is open plan, the steam will diffuse throughout the room

The occupier will probably not turn the fan on.

If you can provide trickle ventilation at each end, high up, it will tend to cause airflow drawing the moisture out. High up, it will not feel draughty as any cold air entering will mix with the warmest air that has risen towards the ceiling.

If you can arrange a light above the worktop, with the extractor automatically coming on, and running on with a timer, it will perhaps encourage its use. A good fan with a ball-bearing motor will run more quietly than a cheap fan. If you can get a 150mm (6 inch) fan, it can run more slowly and more quietly than a 100mm (4-inch) fan, but the duct is not so common.

Put a cowl vent on the outside that will not rattle (much) in the wind.

Basements are often damp so benefit from continuous ventilation.

You must of course mend the leak.

OP is renting I believe - all these gas fires have a gas safe cert I hope? If they are portable and unvented they are producing lots of water vapour.

I'm not clear if the OP has gas fires venting up chimneys; or balanced flue gas heaters venting through the wall; or something else. They should not smell anyway.

If they are unvented, move.

Thank you very much for the advice PigletJohn.

Would a dehumidifier help the OP? Perhaps too expensive to run frequently, just wondered as I am using one to dry out the damp corner.

Special The gas fires are attached to the wall, and the flue/chinmey goes up inside the walls and out through the top of the house. Portable ones would scare the life out of me!

But yes, all properly flued and we have a gas safety check once a year, with a very thorough gas man, who condemmed our old fire a couple of years ago even though it did technically pass - he wasn't happy with it not being perfect (his explanation not mine!)

excellent news. So at least it isn't calor fires causing the damp.

I also live in a house with some very old walls with no damp proof course, and unfortunately the wrong render has been used so they get damp. So these walls can't have furniture against them or big pictures on them. Stripping off old paint and using breathable eco-paint has helped, although the stuff is a bugger to use and is fragile.

It is all really the nature of older houses. All you can do is heat it as much as possible, ventilate it as much as possible, not dry washing indoors, limit other water sources (short showers, cooking with lids on etc) and all the usual things like that. Are there extractor fans in kitchen and bathroom?

what does the landlord suggest? BTW are the carpets musty too?

If your tumble drier is just making things warm and wet it's broken! When mine broke this is exactly what it did. Get a new one if budget allows.

I've found that pulling the furniture out an inch or so really helps as it improves the air flow, so in those two rooms I've moved everything away from the wall and so far it's looking good. Walls not cold or damp to touch so far and hopefully it will stay that way! Carpets not musty at all thank goodness, and they must be a few years old.

The landlord seems pretty disinterested. When we first moved in we had to nag for months to get the bathroom extractor fan (tiny and useless) replaced - we made the first request in October and finally got the new one in at the end of Feb - after weekly phone calls to the estate agents and me sending photos of how bad it was. He took ages to authorise the work and I just don't get it - it's his own investment that he's risking wrecking! We try to do as much as possible ourselves and just send in receipts for parts and materials, otherwise nothing would get done. Phoned 3 weeks ago about another problem, and still no response! Gah. Landlord more than happy to increase the rent every year though

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant!

wasabi Nooooooo! I'm just going to pretend that's not true
Still, rarely use it so no great loss. It wasn't vented to the outside, so would only have probably made things worse anyway..

Re the damp / mold thing, sometimes if you have had any loft insulation installed or cavity wall insulation that hasn't been fitted correctly, in an older property, than that can cause damp issues and mold concerns (google it).... re the clothes thing, I did see a clothes dryer in Dunelm that was like a tent dryer that you could put clothes in to dry. I don't know how cheap it was to run or whether it took the moist air out, but it was a dryer of sorts. With the musty smell, the only thing i can think of, like above, is the dehumidifyers, the bigger the better really - some do the whole house if you leave all the doors open and put them in the hall way.

I have a friend with no tumble dryer or outside yard or garden and she just puts all her washing on repeat spins and then irons them before putting on the radiators.

Loads of ideas above though.

Forgot to add, with the mold thing and the damp = landlords have a responsibility to look after these, which I think you know but yours isn't too brilliant at sorting it. If you google "landlords a good practice guide" there is a list of responsibilities there.

I had to rent my house out for a while and it was never damp. Somehow though the people living there had managed to grow black mold on one of the bathroom walls. This was I think mostly due to them not putting on the heating and not using the light, which inturn turned on the extractor fan.

I am sure landlords can be fined for this as mold is as you've said, a health issue as is the damp = anyway, I cleaned off the mold and contacted the council for help. They suggested the extractor fan can be improved by having one which works for about 10 mins or so after you have switched the light off. That helped, and I got them a dehumidifier to use and gave them some help towards their heating.

so it's a crap property without the saving grace of being cheap?

and you stay because....

I know you said 'can't move' but there is ALWAYS a way.

Well, that's not true at all!

Oi special it's a lovely house, that we have made beautiful despite its shoddy finishes (simple things we've done like repainting skirting boards and replacing door handles have really helped). And it's very very cheap.. the rent is about £150 less pcm than other similar properties and much much more spacious, cheap to run. I just lost my job, so can't afford deposit and moving costs

dog that's good to know about, our landlord gave us that kind of extractor fan so that's good! Had to buy our own dehumidifier though Will continue nagging them!

my mistake. In your OP you described it as scruffy, damp and unheated, and then you said that the rent keeps going up.

now you tell me that it is lovely, and also cheap. Good.

Not unheated, just lacking central heating. I did mention up thread about how we heated it, and that we dont go cold. It's scruffy compared to a new build, the rent goes up in £25 increments but still cheaper than alternatives and I still make it look beautiful ;) I can see how you were confused, don't worry.