Damp, condensation...you know the drill!

[Indith]

Our house is 1890s with a downstairs kitchen bathroom extension and a loft conversion which is split into 2 rooms.

I'm going ot go into detail about the whole house because often there problems need a whole house solution and can't be sorted by just looking at the one room.

There is, or has been, no damp of the evil sort but we have struggled with condensation. We've been getting on top of it though, windows opened fully for short periods daily, extractor fans fitted in kitchen and bathroom so the bathroom is now less swamp like and I think that should we ever get round to repainting we would be able to hold the mould at bay in there.

The extension has cavity wall insulation but the main house of course does not. In general the house is well ventilated, as I said we open windows daily and the exterior doors are pretty draughty (replacing them is somewhere near the bottom of the to do list)

The loft was split into 2 rooms over the summer by us. In what is now a small bedroom there are 2 big velux windows and the fire escape velux. The fire escape forms a little alcove like this except that in ours you step down into the alcove. We have noticed that the walls of this alcove are damp and getting worse.

The loft has lots of insulation in the ceiling, we added a layer of insulation and insulated plasterboard when we did the split. We did this by overboarding rather than pulling down the existing plasetboard so I cannot be sure how much space there is betweent he original insulation and the roof. This was however essential work as the room was unusable before being far too hot in summer and freezinf in winter. It is now a stable temperature. The eaves have insulation in but you can still see the sky so there is plenty of air flow space. There is no roofing felt but there are eaves guards so I assume this would limit the possibility of rain coming ina nd causing the damp.

There is no central heating in the loft room but we do have an electric radiator in there which is on a thermostat. The velus windows are usually pretty wet with condensation in the morning. They are south facing as is our bedroom which also always has wet windows, the windows at the back of the house, north facing, are always dry.

So do any of you lovely experts have any suggestions? What could be causing the wet walls and how do we stop it?

bump

does anybody drape wet washing around the house, or over radiators?

what are the ground floors made of?

Well we do dry indoors on a laundry maid downstairs yes, we have no alternative when we can't dry outside. However we do air the room and so on. Plus we have always dried indoors in the winter and this is a pretty new thing. I'm unsure if it is rain getting in somewhere and seeping through the walls or if it is a condensation thing which has perhaps come up because we are now using that room which we were not before so there is a person breathing in there all night and we have put extra insulation in at the same time.

What do you mean what are the floors made of? I'm being dim, brick house, I don't know what is under the carpets downstairs. Mix of carpet and lino downstairs. Carpets over floorboards upstairs.

Can you try using a dehumidifier in your loft to take excess moisture out if the air?

Well if I knew it was definitely a condensation problem then yes but at the moment I don't own one so reluctant to buy if I can fix teh problem another way. Plus as I said it is a new problem. I'd rather solve the cause than just mop up the effects.

water vapour is lighter than air so it will rise up through the house until it escapes, or finds a cold surface to condense on.

A load of washing can hold up to two litres of water. If you drape it around your house you are delivering that much water into your home, just as much as if you were sprinking it on the floor with a watering can, or throwing it against the walls from a bucket.

A ground floor may be floorboards, or it may be concrete.

I know the washing holds a lot of water but I cna't exactly not wash at all for the winter.

Hmm I'm guessing it has become an issue now because that room is used and therefore warmer but the little alcove is still cold because it is the bit that sticks out so it is all condensing there now. Would that sound right?

How do those little moisture traps work? Could I stick one of those in the alcove?

A moisture trap might hold an egg-cup full of water. It won't make any difference.

If you have a bathroom extractor fan that works, put your washing over the bath with the fan running and the bathroom door and window shut

It will suck the water vapour out of your home.

A modern tumble-drier costs about 30p of electricity per typical load and 60p per full cotton load.

What do you mean by little alcove?

Like a bay or oriel window?

Does it have a little roof? Is it made of brick? How old is the house?

I linked to a picture in the OP. The house is 1890s. It is the fire escape velus so it is at the level of the eaves.

The Lakeland moisture traps say they hold a litre, reviews are good. Ho hum.

What gets me is that it is a new problem. I guess linked to the work we had done over the summer and the fact that it is only now we are seeing the effect it has now it is cold but before this I knew the areas that had condensation problems and had taken steps to improve them.

No space for a tumble drier. Yes the bathroom extractor works but it is still very damp down there, not even the hand towl dries unless it is on the radiator, washing would take several days. Not an option. I know that it isn't great having washing around but I have 3 small children including one in cloth nappies and a husband who does a lot of sport. I wash a lot!

A litre in a trap is more than I expected

when you mop up condensation you have to take it outside the house, or the water just gets recycled.

I see your velux/dormer/escape thing. Possibly it lets rain in, or is not properly insulated. Difficult to tell without looking behind the plasterboard.

Hmmm well I guess I will get a moisture trap as I'm off that way this morning anyway and if it doesn't work up there is can be put to use elsewhere. If that doens't clear it up then I'll have to consider the window leaking and get someone round to take a look. I don't think it was any worse during all the driving rain and floods that was ds1's window leaking so I'm leaning towards condensation. Lack of insulation is probable. We redid the ceiling in there but I don't know what is around that alcove, if that is colder than the rest of the room (highly likely) then that is where it will all gather.

I find our dehumidifier invaluable. We dry our washing in the utility room with the dehumidifier running and it gets dry in no time. The dehumidifier is not as expensive to run as the tumble drier. The utility room also has the boiler in, which helps.

We suffer with damp and condensation, we've just bought a karcher window vac. It's amazing, I can't believe the amount of water that I'm throwing away that would be in the house. It is however another job to do every day!!! I also have those humidity egg things