House smells so musty

[ToysRus56]

Hello

Looking for advice. Whole house smells musty. We moved about two months ago. Fairly freshly decorated, everything gets a regular airing and cleaned, all wooden floors etc.

Will it be the cellar? It's particularly bad downstairs. It's so horrible and making me a bit miserable, I'm a bit embarrassed! Who should I ask, a damp specialist? Someone to insulate the cellar? I'm worried that if we insulate the cellar where does the damp go?! Just feels a bit gross. We have a plate in the kitchen that just gets mould on the bottom of it so there's clearly damp in the air. When we looked round both times the owner was burning oils...now I realise why!

Help!

Try running a dehumidifier in the cellar as a starting point - you can hire them

Get humidity monitors in each room. Try and identify which is the dampest and where damp might be coming from.

get a dehumidifier going in the damp room.

i am a bit obsessed with all this after buying my house 2 years ago and it being damp and musty. 2 years later it’s really only one room that is the issue.

it can take a long time to dry out a house .

Check to see if there is visible cracks that are letting water in . Repair the problem, dry out house then .

How is the cellar ventilation? What sort of survey did you get?

Do you think there is a leak anywhere? Even a microscopic one? Can you track it down to one specific area/source/room? Definitely get a dehumidifier, but there must be a source also I’d think. There are leak detection/damp specialists, we just got a quote, and it was about £1k for them to come do a survey

I’d also run an air purifier if it’s a mouldy musty smell

You say you're regularly cleaning wooden floors. Are you washing them and making them damp? That can cause a really musty smell.

Thank you everyone. I think its just very damp - we ran a dehumidifier in a room upstairs and it was really high. I will look into an air purifier. Its weird because the upstairs feels fine, but the downstairs definitely feels damp, it just never really came up in the survey...Like hats on our shelf feel damp to touch. It's horrible! I'm a bit worried the answer is tanking the cellar (i barely know what that means) which will be thousands....

If you've only been in a couple of months I guess your survey was done during the long run of very dry weather.

Yes that is an excellent point!

Tanking doesn't cost huge amounts of money - as long as there isn't a leak. But yes, the cellar is probably a good place to start. Be wary of damp specialists - they mostly are a bit of a con - only use one if you get a personal recommendation. https://www.spab.org.uk/sites/default/files/SPAB%20Technical%20advice%20note-Control%20of%20Dampness.pdf

This is helpful.

Also - don't worry, often there is a not that expensive solution. Check airholes and airbricks as well and make sure they aren't blocked.

Also open all your windows on a nice day!

Which type of survey did you pay for?

I had family who had cellar and used to run a dehumidifier in it constantly, it made a huge difference.