Kitchen steam/condensation extraction - what do you use?

[evrybuddy]

We rely on an open window at the moment and to be blunt, it doesn't work very well, unless you open it all the way and freeze out the house.

It's a mix of cooking steam, hot air vapour, water from washing machine, washing up etc etc...

Windows flow with condensation - it's Carribbean levels of humidity.

What's the best way to get rid of it?

Cooker hood extractor?

Separate wall or ceiling extractor fan?

Combination of these or an alternative?

PigletJohn is good with fans. He will know. I think a separate extractor would work best but am no expert.

We don't even use the one in our bathroom ceiling, because it never seems to get misty - our old windows aren't a perfect fit! (plus it is noisy and the electrician didn't bother to fit an outlet and then the roof man fitted one and it keeps falling off - waste of time tbh).

Do you drape wet washing around your home?

We do, unfortunately washing on almost every radiator except the bedroom.

We will probably have a tumble drier with a vent in the kitchen eventually.

Also, no extractor in the bathroom either - just relying on the window being open. We intend to get an extractor in there too but perhaps not until next year.

We put in new double glazing recently and get less condensation than we used to (but that could be just because it's not winter yet) and keep all of the windows permanently locked on 'night latch' - about 1cm open - which does help

House is a bungalow - very compact - about 400 ish sq ft - so lots of water in a small space

We have a dehumidifier too but it's a bit six of one half a dozen of the other.

It's obviously collecting water but it's noisy and we can't leave it on for hours as it would drive the neighbours nuts and in the end - it only works while it's on - it doesn't have a retrospective or preventative effect - don't know why I thought it might have!!!

Draping wet washing around the house will make it as wet as if you throw buckets of water on the walls. Start saving up for that drier.

A washing line will be a good start at lower cost, and can be used in all weathers if you have a carport of other cover.

Use a core drill to make neat holes in the walls for your drier, cooker hood and bathroom extractor. You can easily do three in a day. Tool hire shops have them, or an electrician can do it if fitting the fans. They are rather heavy. 100mm duct for the drier, 125mm for the hood. If you have access to the loft above the bathroom you can have an inline ducted fan which can be quieter and more powerful than a wall fan. Avoid small 100mm wall fans which are too weak.

I don't think it's your cooking either. I don't get much condensation at all from cooking and I don't have a window open. And I do everything on the stove top and barely use the oven. I'm sure it's the wet washing! We use a combination of dryer and conservatory for drying clothes. (Not a fan of conservatories. Not sure why anyone will pay to build one).

It's a funny thing with the cooking - not boiling water based - just when I turn the oven on the condensation appear on the window. I guess it must just warm the air enough to cause it to react against the cooler window surface.

MY cooker is not on an external wall - in fact it's on the wall opposite the kitchen outside wall - the kitchen is like a corridor/galley with a door at each end and window on the external wall over the sink - so the cooker hood trunking on the opposite wall would need to be routed around the top of the room and over a doorway to reach an exit on an external wall.

Would all that trunking compromise its effectiveness?

Or, it could go up ito the loft and out that way - is that allowed with cooker hood extractors?

Or, I could have a 'room' extractor fan on the external wall, next to the window - and maybe no cooker hood?

Or, room extractor and cooker hood?

Which would be best?

Or none of the above...

What it is, I'm guessing is you have a lot of moisture in the air in your house. It's not generated solely from your heating. Just like when you say you get it from using the oven. The heat just makes the condensation appear on the colder surface.

I'm with PigletJohn that your best bet is a dryer.

Is it a gas cooker?

You can use trunking. Get the rigid tube (flat or round) not the flexible hose which traps fluff, grease and condensation. It can be run inside or on top of wall cabinets, or even in the wall/ceiling corner and painted to match. I can be run in the loft but MUST exhaust outside the house. In the loft tilt it slightly so any condensation runs outside, and flop insulation over it.

I quite like canopy extractors hidden inside wall cabs. Ask Elica to send you their catalogue. Verify duct size before you buy or make holes. Long ducts need more power.

"Which would be best?"
The best thing would be to stop draping wet washing indoors.

Well, we will be getting a dryer but even then I'm guessing we'll still be using the radiators for tea towels and stuff like that, so I don't think we'll ever be 'moisture-free' - house of husks!

It is a gas cooker - Electric better?

you won't be moisture-free unless you stop breathing. But if you get a dryer and use outside space you will be doing far less damage to the building. NEVER put washing on radiators!!

gas creates water vapour as part of the combustion process.

meantime lids on pans, normal five minute showers, sensible use of heating and drying outside.

gas cookers are fine.

Once you stop tipping water into your house from the washing, the small amounts from breathing and the cooker flame will be dealt with by normal draughts ventilation.

You will need to ventilate your bedroom though because it is probably a relatively small room and you will be in there breathing with the door shut for quite long periods, and you will need a bathroom extractor, preferably an inline ducted one in the loft. For example but ignore the cheap rubbish ones.

When buying extractors, look at the extract rate in cu.m/hr and the noise in db. 80cu.m is pathetically small, 240cu.m is enough for a steamy shower.

Cheers all - very informative - will definitely be having a bathroom extracter and the info on cu.m/hr (not sure what that is but will look it up) is somethng I wouldn't have known about.

Tumble dryer - for sure.

Cooker hood or separate extractor in kitchen - check.

I totally get what everyone says about the clothes on radiators thing but suspect I'm probably within the overwhelming majority who have to do this.

The Uk must be damp 75% of the year, when outside drying is impossible, and if you don't have the luxury of a garden or outside space you'll be drying indoors even when it's splitting the stones outside.

We're all washing ourselves and our clothes more often. We're buying more clothes but home design is not changing to reflect the changes.

Look at a brochure for any new home (especially ftb homes) - how many are open plan living with cooker and kitchen facilities in living room?

Never mind the racket they all make - builders often don't even bother to include washer driers and if they do, they are in the living space.

Do they live in a different country to me? A hot dry one, perhaps?

When are the Govt/building regs people going to legislate to force developers to include complusory washing and drying facilities either separate in each individual property or separate in the block.

It's a no-brainer but you only seem to get this stuff in the pricier builds.

evrybuddy I never hang clothes outside. It's far too wet most of the year to do so. I have always had a dryer even when living in a one bed flat. I just put it in the living space. Then when I had my first 3-bed semi, it's in the conservatory. Only recently we got a utility room. My only exception is hanging up delicate clothes, and quick dry stuff (eg fleeces). But there aren't much of that and I am lucky to always had a conservatory (once I moved out of a flat).

unless you live on the wrong side of a mountain, the UK is NOT damp 75% of the year. There are long windless spells in winter (which is why windfarms are such a stupid idea here) but that often means sunshine too.

energy is already touch and go in the UK so I entirely agree, builders need to incorporate outside space for drying. Lots of other stupid architect ideas too as you mention. Washer driers are notoriously useless.

that said, we don't need more clothes, we all have plenty, and many of us wash them far too much.

moral - don't buy a crap new build, buy an older house. Should be cheaper too!

I guess we'll never know if the UK is damp 75% of the year or not - it's a random 'feels like' statistic of my own making - there are no facts for that one!

It's a place which is damp a lot of the year - it's definitely not known as a dry country.

I can't do statistical pedantry, and it won't alter the reality of my moist kitchen - so I'll have to bow out on that one.

Whether we need clothes or not, people buy them and wash them - if we didn't wash them enough we'd all be complaining about smelly buggers on the buses.

I don't think that 'moral of the story' stacks up because I have an old house with all the damp problems that old houses have - old houses aren't better than new ones per se.

I don't believe the past was a better place for much really.

British building practices haven't moved on - they weren't better in the old days - they just 'were what they were' and unfortunately, with regard to moisture in the home, they don't seem much better now - but that's probably just the economics of the building industry.

It could all be better but nobody wants to pay or make investment or change learnt behaviours and bad habits.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference

ok. use some wisdom and stop wrecking your house by draping soggy clothes everywhere. You can change that.

you've been repeatedly told that is the source of your problem.

bye.

We got a proper cooker hood fitted in March and it has made a huge difference. The kitchen and bathroom are in a shoddy single story extension, there was no extraction at all when we moved in, we added a fan to the outside bathroom wall and another to the kitchen, not a hood just on the outside wall as we knew we'd be planning on changing the kitchen some point soonish. It helped, but not a huge amount. Bathroom improved, the fan in there is on a humidistat and you could hear it come on when we were cooking in the kitchen. Now that we have a cooker hood it doesn't do that any more. Our hob is not on the outside wall but they ducted the fan up into the loft space and out of the gable end.

We too dry washing indoors, there is no alternative. It sucks but there you go, sometimes there isn't. We have a line outside that we use whenever possible but there is absolutely nowhere to put a dryer. Nowhere. We got the new kitchen in March and tried to find a way but we couldn't. We use a dehumidifier on a humidistat in the room we dry washing in.

Well, we have (half of) a Victorian house and I always hang the washing to dry - mostly in the bathroom but also in the hallway and on the bannisters.

Not on the rads - it makes the clothes crispy and they are new rads that won't hold them anyway.

I do generally spin it all at 800 first.

We barely have any condensation.

I'm not sure why this is - perhaps that it is quite draughty? I have fitted perspex magnetic glazing in the front windows so we will see how they go this winter.

I used to have a dryer but was always finding it didn't properly dry things even when on for an hour and the noise was awful as was the cost to run it.

We don't have an extractor in the kitchen, which is tiny, but we have plenty of opening windows and so if it gets a bit steamy I'll just open one of them for a while.

This is just what I do. It's funny but my son seems to have condensation on his window on the top floor, far more than we do downstairs.

I think he breathes too much. I must tell him to stop

Btw I'd advise anyone who can to have their washing machine in the bathroom rather than the kitchen.

We did this when we moved here and I would never have it any other way now - it's fantastic.

Mind you our bathroom is a bit bigger than the kitchen so it makes sense in that way too. It's a very ergonomic laundry cycle - dirty clothes off, into machine, washed, then hung on airer.

I was forever tripping on piles of laundry in the kitchen, before.

water vapour is lighter than air, so it will rise through the house until it can escape, or condense.

I spin at 1400 anything that I think will survive or will be tumbled!

It's norm in the rest of Europe to have your laundry appliances in the bathroom, however I think in the UK or building regs mean you can't do that (well not in new builds you have to do it yourself)

IF you have a dehumidifier stick the wet washing (after an extra spin) in the smallest room with the door shut until you get a tumble dryer or you can buy special tents which house the dehumidifier and the washing clothes horse.

Oh that would explain it PJ, thank you. I will get their windows double glazed too I think (v impressed with magneglaze)

Random - it is fine as long as the machine is rated for IP44 I think (will check that) so basically splashproof, like bathroom lights have to be.

And if it's outside zone 2, which is about 2ft from the bath I think.

It's hard wired into the wall and then switched outside the room above the door. I think some bathrooms wouldn't be big enough though.