Humidity

[Curtainmaker2020]

Hi all

Long time lurker first post

I have those temperature/humidity guages (from amazon) dotted around my home and in the last few weeks I've noticed that the humidity is showing as 75% downstairs and around 69% upsatirs (upstairs is always much warmer than downstairs). I understand that the humidity should be 30% to 60 % and mine was usually arounf 55-60% in the past

I can't see any signs of damp or mould on the walls or in the wardrobes although I do get some condensation on the windows when the temperature outside is cold

Its a 1990s built detached house. Usual brick build

I don't have the heating on much but I try to keep the room temperature downstairs at around 14 C or above

Its rarely less than 17C upstairs

I bought some of those dehumidifier pots and I've dotted them around the house but after a few days there's no waer in the bottom half of any of them

I cant understand why these high humidity readings are showing all of a sudden

Can anyone advise what I should be looking at....might I have a leak somewhere which I cant see? A damp course issue?

How would I know?

Thanks in advance

I don’t blame you, it’s so expensive at the moment but you don’t want to get sick either.

There’s a few dehumidifiers on my local FB marketplace if that’s something you could try?

I have just checked some Meaco’s online and the prices have shot up! Mines about 3 years old and I can’t believe how expensive they are now :(

do you have a chimney? I find that if my chimney is open (we don’t use the fire) then it creates lovely air flow and the humidity drops quite a lot.

I’ll keep thinking though!!

Those humidity things have had me totally obsessed at times 😂 mine reach 86% when it rains it’s so frustrating!

No chimney, no, @SWbungalowlady and thank you so much for your suggestions

I've just put the heating on (!!) but I guess, if thats the , or one of the, issues ....it'll take some days of regular heating to have an effect :)

I'm really grateful to everyone for their suggestions. I'd really like to get to the bottom of the issue and if it ultimately means buying a dehumidifier, then so be it!! They are really expensive, arent they? :(

All heating will probably do is reduce the relative humidity.

Warm air holds more water than cold air. So if you heat the place up your relative humidity will reduce, but you won't get rid of the water.

Once you stop heating the temperature goes down and unless you have removed the water then the RH will go up again.

Unless you want to keep the heating on permanently you need to find the source of the humidity and remove it.

Environmental control is not just about heating. 90% of people will tell you that the solution to stopping your house feeling damp is to whack the heating up.

The actual solution is to remove the water/ source of dampness.

What you will find is that you can run a house at much lower temperatures if the humidity is lower. 15C at 50% RH feels a lot better than 15C at 70% RH.

So it is a question of what you spend the money on. Electricity to dehumidify. Or electricity/gas to heat the house. Getting the combination right can be tricky.

But just whacking the heating on to increase the temperature can be a long way away from being the most financially efficient solution to living in acceptable conditions. It sits at one end of the scale, and running 5 industrial dehumidifiers and paying £200 electricity a month to keep your house dry but cold sits at the other.

Where are you where it's not been raining for a few days?
My Victorian house is very humid this time of year due to the constant wet weather.
Have a meaco dehumidifier running a lot as we dry laundry inside - gets it down to about 60% after a whole day

I feel your pain @Curtainmaker2020 . My house used to be dry as a bone when we first moved in, and for a couple of years. Then our lifestyle obviously changed the nature of this. It's very rarely before 60%, often near 80%. I've been getting so fed up each spring and autumn, so this year I bought THREE dehumidifiers! Mine are from amazon and are the 10l Russell Hobbs one for £115 each - they have a carrying handle and are light enough to move easily and they're a compact size. They're really great. One lives in the room where we hang our laundry (always have had a dehumidifier in there but it was ancient. One moves about the rooms upstairs, the other is downstairs.

Thank you all again. Fabulous answers

Yes.....@GasPanic I absolutely hear you. Whacking up the heating isnt the answer....finding out WHY my house is suddenly showing higher humidity levels IS the answer.

Is it simply down to the weather being so much wetter lately? Or is there an actual issue with the damp course or a leak somewhere or.....???

I'm so grateful for all your suggestions of types and brands of dehumidifiers. I'll look at them all.

I wonder if I need to get some sort of property report, as though I were buying my home? To see whats going on?

Does anyone have any throughts on this?

personally I wouldn't do anything until I had seen what happens with a dehumidifier for a couple of months

The relative humidity increases as the weather gets colder. Our heating system also measures humidity and I can clearly see that as summer has changed into autumn the humidity levels have increased. We have no leaks, we haven't changed our behaviour.

Heating helps because it warms the walls and windows so you are less likely to get moisture condensing on them which allows mould to grow. It also helps to exchange the air in your house with fresh air from outside. I really wouldn't panic about the humidity levels, just try and air the house daily and don't let it get too cold which is when you'll get damp and mould.

I found out the hard way. When I had my floorboards renovated it was duriing a very, very wet spell of weather. I had some of the gaps filled. When we moved into summer and the hot, dry weather, the gaps widened and the bits filling in started to come loose.

However, I live in quite a wet part of the country so when we did get a prolonged spell of dry weather I ran a humidifier in the hall!

I see the windows as natural dehumidifiers. They helpfully collect the water every morning for me, so I just go round the windows with a cloth and collect it (it's just a couple of inches at the bottom of each window in our house). Takes about 60 seconds and I only do it if the weather's wet outside so opening the windows won't dry the house naturally.

Hi @Raberta .....thats a positive way of looking at it! What are the levels of humidity in your house? 😎

Thanks @Reallybadidea
I do feel quite panicky about it. Its just so strange that its showing as so humid all of a sudden

You are comparing autumn to summer, that's the change you are seeing.

Thanks....and you may be right.....but this has never happened before. So, not last year or the year before.

I guess the change could be due to summer/autumn but I am wondering why it wouldnt have happened in previous years as well?😊

I do feel quite panicky about it. Its just so strange that its showing as so humid all of a sudden

It's as @GasPanic and @Reallybadidea have already discussed. Your house is colder (14C is suitable for a warehouse, not a house!) and cold air holds less water. So the air in your colder house is now holding water closer to the maximum that it's able to, which is higher relative humidity. If your house was warmer, the water in the air would be further away from the maximum amount of water it could hold, which would lead to lower relative humidity readings. The actual absolute amount of water in the air may be the same now as in the summer.

The little pots of dehumidifying beads are useful for small spaces, like damp cupboards, but not so useful in big spaces. If you actually have a room that's damp, a plug-in dehumidifier will make a huge difference.

Thanks so much @skilpadde

The last 2 days I've been aiming to get the temperature of my home up to non warehouse levels! 😀

Upstairs its been 20 C with a humidity of 65%

Downstairs its been 18 C with a humidity of 72%

In previous years (2022 and 2023) I havent had such high humidity levels and I've lived with colder temperatures in the autumn/winter 😭

Its a strange one

I don't have an answer @Curtainmaker2020 because it does seem odd that the humidity is raised this year and not in previous autumns

I hope you get to the bottom of it

I had this a few weeks ago. Noticed our humidity sensors had all risen by 20% and wasn’t really dropping with the dehumidifier on, or shot straight back up when dehumidifier was turned off.

Turns out we had a small leak under the floor due to a burst radiator pipe. Our boiler pressure then dropped to zero so knew it was a leak. Once leak was fixed and dehumidifier on, levels returned to normal within hours.

That's I interesting @FunJadePlayer

How did you find out about the underfloor leak?

We water coming up through the floor in our WC. How’s your boiler pressure?

Hi @FunJadePlayer ......I've no idea how my boiler pressure is. How do you check?

I don't have any humidity guages. So I don't know what the humidity is in my home. Which guages do you use?

🥰

I live in a basement flat and the person I bought it off didn't properly look after it - for instance there was a leak from upstairs in the kitchen and she never properly dried it out, the boiler was old and knackered, didn't seem the flat was properly aired ever.

I bought a Probreeze for £110 on Amazon and the amount of water it's taking in in insane. My humidity has gone from very high 70's to 55 within a week. Was cheap to buy and very cheap to run. Highly recommend it.