Talk to me about damp

[lizzieoak]

Stupid damp. Good for the skin, bad for the lungs.

So we have a 100 year old house and in the winter wake up with the windows streaming. The windows don't have trickle vents (not sure I've ever seen any in Canada?), and by mid-October it'll be too cold to sleep with them open a bit.

I try to wipe them in the morning and (when I am not racing off to work) run a sodding big dehumidifier for an hour in each room.

I'm wondering what else I can do that does not involve remodelling (low income for the foreseeable).

Silica gels? Would this dehumidify a room effectively? I can get ones which change colour when they are damp and need popping in the oven to be reused.

I'm also wondering about leaving an oil-filled space heater on in the dampest room overnight? The heating system makes a racket (forced air) so I can't leave it on all night as it would be constantly waking me up. Plus it feels wasteful to have the heat on while I'm asleep. But mostly it's too loud.

Anything else?

Could you get a more efficient dehumidifier? We have an ebac one which is advertised as being suitable for a 4-5 bedroom house as long as it's sited fairly centrally. I'd imagine moving one from room to room means it doesn't have enough to chance to work properly.

Tried the cheap little damp absorbers and although they soon filled with water none of them were effective enough to make a big change like stop the condensation.

I'm not sure. All I see on this side of the pond are ones like the one I have. It cost about £130 (concerned from my currency). And they make a racket.

Does it help to leave the heat on overnight (space heater)?

Looks like ebac only do wildly expensive industrial ones in Canada. Off to check karcher window vacuum.

Heat on at night reduce damp?

It's condensation forming on the coldest part of the room overnight. Most of it will be caused by the sleepers' warm breath and body heat. It's not damp as such. I read somewhere on MN about putting frozen bottles of water on the window sill on a tray as the condensation then forms there rather than on the windows. Might not work in Canada depending on the outside temperatures.

Is the house warm with the heating on and do you heat all the rooms or just the ones you use?

Do you dry washing inside?

To be honest, what you are describing is not damp, it's condensation.

Damp itself is dangerous because of the mould spores which form. Condensation can also cause mould spores to form but it doesn't sound like yours are?

I also live in an old building and have the same issue with windows streaming. There is not much you can do as most of it is formed from the moisture in breath and it forming on the windows as the temperature outside is lower than that inside.

A space heater won't make much difference I'm afraid.

Karcher window vac has made life a lot easier and it also means you are completely removing the water rather than just moving it to a cloth which then needs to dry into the air again!

Marched window vac. Also use on tiles in bathroom , after a bath/shower.
Aim to reduce humidity in air : lids on saucepans, don't dry washing indoors - use vented tumble drier, if use bath run some cold water in first then hot to reduce steam produced.

Secondly, get rid of moisture you're producing - always use extractor fan in bathroom, and extractor over cooker.
Get decent dehumidifier : a good one , like eco air, is not noisy. Check big enough for space.May need to run all night.
Get a humidity meter off internet. Cheap ones not fantastically accurate, but by testing different parts of house, help you to work out where you're generating moisture, and how much your dehumidifier is reducing it.

you have a condensation problem.
try any/all of these:

1. extractor fans in kitchen and bathroom.
2. keep bathroom doors shut and extractor fans on.
3. No drying washing inside. If you must dry it, put it in one room with door shut and a dehumidifier on.
4. Open windows for 5 minutes on morning (unless raining) to let out moist air.
5. I assume you have double glazing?

6.Every morning wipe windows down and squeeze water down sink.

Not much else you can do, window trickle vents are good, but the temp difference between you and outside it so great in winter, I m not sure it would work anyway.

just to be pedantic (sorry) but mould spores don't form in damp.

Mould spores are like tiny seeds, and they are everywhere all the time. On clothes, on our skin etc. In very damp conditions they can then grow into mould/mildew.
Most people then freak out, and assume that because mildew is black, that it is dangerous black mould.

But it isn't. Mould that grows in damp in our houses is a normal part of human environment and not dangerous. It is however unsightly and so we tend to clean it off, and a lot of it will cause a lot of spores to be present in the air, which might aggravate asthma etc.

Very interesting block who works with moulds and fungi has debunked the panic around mildew - he says we have it wrong.

Thanks all!
I'm in a part of Canada with a climate similar to southern England.

Good point about the window vac getting all the water and not being a towel which needs drying and thus putting water back in the air.

I'm not sure a quiet dehumidifier is available here. They all look much of a muchness and online reviews mention noise.

It is mostly from breathing as I open the bathroom window after a bath (though must get ds to start running cold first as he gets the bathroom very steamy!) and always have a kid on the pasta pot.

I only dry hand washing indoors and I can't really get round that. The drier vents outside, so it's not the culprit.

The black does look gross! I try to keep on top of it, but it's hard. I hadn't heard maybe it's not a problem. I know the panic is widespread!

Maybe I'll try the frozen water bottles! Going to google that!

The house is warm when the heat's on (till about 9:00pm when I turn it off - not that I've turned it on yet as it's not cold enough). We can't heat room by room (except with a space heater) the system heats all the rooms.

There's only doors on the bedrooms and the bathroom. The kitchen, dining room, and living room all just open into each other (& hall).

We don't have double glazing as we have original Edwardian sash windows and its ruin the look to put in double glazing.

I bought little silica geo packs yesterday as a start as I was in the hardware store anyway. Just in case they help (about 8x5 inches).

Silica gel, not geo.

silica gel will be ineffective in a room.

If you weigh yours out of the packet, and again after it has been in the room and absorbed some water, there might be an ounce or so difference.

If your dehumidifier has a collection vessel, see how many pints of water it gathers in a day. A pint is twenty ounces of water (UK) or sixteen ounces (US).

Wow, thanks piglet! That makes sense about the absorption weight difference. Bum, guess I need to buy a new dehumidifier for the other level of the house (bought a used one which predictably broke).

We're on metric here, though I sort of grasp pints from my childhood/having lived in England and buying pints of milk. Also seem to be constantly buying pint pots of paint for window frames.

Forgot to say (due to tangent about measuring systems) that my main floor dehumidifier collects easily a pint a day.

A pint is roughly half a litre. We have single glazing in an Edwardian house so we get condensation in the winter. A couple of rooms have secondary glazing and they don't suffer the same issues - we are thinking of getting it for more rooms. You don't even notice the secondary glazing and can still clearly see the original windows in all their glory.

We have the same problem in our Victorian house. Agree to heating and ventilating rooms. Water vac on windows, also on shower screen , tiles and side of bath to remove all condensation. De-humidifier in bedroom. I also painted our bedroom with bathroom/kitchen paint to stop mould forming on walls.

I can't afford double glazing and I'm not confident I could find anyone here to install double glazing without making a mess of it. The Canadian attitude to old windows is ... odd. Bin them, tear them out, no sense that brand new plastic windows look a sight in a 100 year old house.

Secondary glazing is not the same thing as double glazing. It's worth looking into - it doesn't involve removing your existing windows.

I was picturing sort of an extra pane somehow fitted in front of the existing one? I haven't seen anyone with that here and while it may exists out here I couldn't afford it. I'm between jobs at the moment so am having to make hard decisions about the purchase of avacadoes and chocolate, nevermind paying tradesmen. One day!

You can put in ventilation through roof/ceiling space. You just need to get condensation out. Speak to a specialist contractor. Good luck!