Dehumidifier advice for condensation/mould?

[BigFatHamster]

Have a problem with condensation/mould in the small bedroom where adult ds resides.
He is in there most of the time now working/studying/gaming/sleeping and with the door shut a lot which doesn’t help and the room is on the gable end so the walls are cold. It is the coldest room in the house [1930’s) although there is a radiator in there.

Can anyone advise whether a dehumidifier would be a good idea and what sort of size would we need. Not much room in there and its about 12ft by 8ft.

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MNHQ

Yes it would help. I have one and it's been a god send in my Victorian house.

I've recently bought a dehumidifier. If the room is cold, a condenser one would not be as good as a desiccant one. I bought the Meaco Zambezi and although it's more expensive to run, it also warms the room when in laundry mode

I have a Meaco one, it is great. But the thing is they make a whirring noise, if he is in there a lot with the door shut then I doubt he would put up with an electric dehumidifier. Things you could do;
-Those non electric dehumidifiers with the chemical cake would be better, you can often find them in the pound shop. Or the posher ones are called aero 360.
-Get him to open the trickle vent in window if there is one, or open the window for half an hour once a day.
-have a look at the radiator- could a single radiator be replaced with a double or something like that.
-Or you could use this as an opportunity to talk to him about his lifestyle and set some boundaries as its not healthy for him or your house!

Thank you.
He could run one in the day when he’s not asleep I suppose but do you need to have it on all the time. Would it help being on for part of the time? And do you need a certain size to be effective?

The room does warm up with the radiator and the computer but the outside walls are still cold over the winter.

He does have the door open more now because of the problems and I don’t think it will be as bad once he starts his new job and is out more. I am well aware it’s not a healthy lifestyle but that’s not the point of this post.

I will get him to open the window for a while each day.

Just on the "how often to run" question.
I've got one in my conservatory and have it on a timer (2hrs) overnight - massively cuts down on the condensation (which is made worse by the giant dog which sleeps in the kitchen part of the room).

I have a meaco for my windowless en suite and it works well but I have to agree it is loud. I only run it with the doors shut on both the en suite and the bedroom when I don’t need to be in either.

I also have a couple of desiccant dehumidifiers which of course are silent. I assume they are doing something since they fill with water and need to be emptied but I’m not sure how effective they are (i.e. how much more humid it would be without them).

I've got horrible condensation in this bungalow, all the floors were rotten. I bought the Aldi 20L dehumidifer last year, but it only works in one room with the windows/door closed. Normally collects about 10L. If you can persuade your son to leave his window open, as well as the door a little when he's sleeping, it would help.

I'm having a positive ventilation unit put into the loft to circulate air around the place.

Also check his wardrobe - I'd just moved in here and didn't realise I had this problem, I lost clothing I'd stored on the bottom of the wardrobe, covered in mould.

I've got a meaco DD8L junior (it's the smaller model than the Zambezi). It's great at keeping condensation/ moisture at bay in my modern not very well ventilated flat.

It also dries my washing pretty quickly. It chucks out quite a lot of heat so I don't often have the heater in my bedroom on.

I’ve found a combination of a dehumidifier and also one of those moisturizer collection boxes works a treat.
I also open the window 10-20 minutes a day and encourage the door being open at night

I have a Meaco DDL8. It is pretty good, we have had very little condensation since buying it. We have never had mould though, so don’t know how it would perform with that. I tend to put it on a couple of hours during the day and again at night, it is noisy so it goes downstairs at night, and this keeps the humidity down. It turns itself off once the humidity has reached a good level, so sometimes isn’t on for very long. It is very good on laundry mode and dries washing really well.

We have one on constantly on the landing which is the centre of the house.

Before we had it, we were cleaning mould off the edges of the windows, now we don’t. I’m glad we bought it, very glad we bought it.

What type have you got ScroogeMcDuckling and do you keep it on at all times?

It’s a challenge 10litre

it was just under £100.

I nearly died when I saw they are nearly £170 from Amazon at the moment

Have a look in Curry’s, eBay, etc and put an ad on Freegle/Freecycle, someone on here got theirs from there.

Ours is on from November to February/March permanently - the only time it switches off is when the water trough needs emptying.

A lot of people rave about the “Meeco Zambezi”, as it has a laundry function on it.

People say that it doesn’t dry your clothes, but I’ve noticed that towels only take four/five hours now instead of all day.

I suppose it’s dragging the moisture out, so less moisture in the material

I have a Meaco as well, and it has a function where you can set what moisture level you want. It come so if it gets above that level and switches off one it gets down below it. I usually run it for 2 hours a day and we have much less condensation and damp.

@neptunanna When did you buy the Zambesi? I am thinking of getting it. How are the running costs. I wonder it it will last long? Any thoughts on the machine? Thanks