Reducing damp in a single room bedsit

[ViolentPanda]

Do you have to do that each time you move it around?
Cos I imagined like having it on in my room during weekdays and then in my ex's room at the weekends etc.

They're on castors, so as long as you don't bump them about a lot you can just roll it from room to room with no problems.
We pretty much leave ours in one room all the time, because we very rarely close any internal doors except the loo/bathroom, but if you have a particularly damp room (as you've mentioned) you'd probably be best off starting in tere with the door closed as often as possible for a week or so before moving it.

THANKS for the tips on redecorating.

Hey, I've had to remedy so much damp damage over the years that I sympathise with anyone who has a damp problem, and I'm glad to be able to pass on some info to people.

 

[rowan]

dehumidifers are excellent, we bought one for about £80 in B & Q as we were getting terible condensation ven though we have double glazing,

Have you got UPVC? I always thought that was supposed to stop all condensation but I still get it even with UPVC double glazing.
I was thinking it might be 'cos the windows are quite old so am thinking of having new windows, but if it won't solve the problem I won't bother.

btw, what causes condensation exactly? I only get it in my bedroom, but not all the time. Sometimes I get up and the windows are dry, other mornings dripping wet

I've got a small/medium dehumidifier and it's brilliant, but I only have to empty it once a week or so. It's in my bedroom 'cos it's the only room that needs it, and it's the only room that doesn't get the sun.

 

[longdog]

btw, what causes condensation exactly? I only get it in my bedroom, but not all the time. Sometimes I get up and the windows are dry, other mornings dripping wet

It's something to do with the temperature drop between the warm(ish) humid air in a room and the coldness of a wall / window / whatever. Basically, the warmer the air the more water it is capable of carrying. When warm wet air meets a cold surface the moisture will condense on (or in some circumstances within) the surface.

It all gets a bit technical and I can't remember what I was taught at college 22 years ago but the big problems come when the moisture is condensing out of the air below the surface of the wall causing the plaster to become almost permanently damp and prone to mould growth. It's because of the additional problems that arise from having the condensation forming within the walls themselves that you should waterproof them with PVA as others have suggested. It won't stop the condensation but it will ensure that it is on the surface of the wall where it will be more obvious and easier to deal with.

 

[Space Girl]

Not if you either can't afford to move or you live in social housing.

A big part of problems with damp and mould is condensation, and alot of that is directly attributable to modern (as in the last century or so) building methods and materials.

Unfortunately, modern brick mortar and internal plasterboard skinning are nowhere near as "breathable" as lath and lime plaster and lime brick mortar, and dwellings are nowadays a lot more "airtight" than they used to be, which all contributes to moisture-entrapment. Add to this that one of the best moisture vents of all, the chimney, doesn't feature in much post-war housing and you're on a hiding to nothing damp-wise.

I understant that there are issues why people can't move but surely this day and age there is no reason for anyone to have to be living in such conditions, especailly if they are in social housing.

as for the modern building materials, yes they have changed but there is no reason why they can not deal with the moisture? I live in a cob house with lime plaster and yes they need to breath but there are issues with it too, how I would love to have a square house made out of brick and plaster

 

[Stobart Stopper]

Have you got UPVC? I always thought that was supposed to stop all condensation but I still get it even with UPVC double glazing.
.

But we have windows by a company called Supreme O Glaze, almost everyone I know who has had their windwos has had a problem. They ripped out half of the brickwork when they installed a window in the spare room and all the problems started from there.
We had a 10 year guarantee so I called them up and they said that the 'original Supreme O Glaze went into liquidation in 1996' and a new company moved in the offices and took over the name. Like fuck.They went into liquidation only 4 months after we had the windows installed and the guarantee is invalid. Funny how on their website they say they have "been trading for 40 years."
Bastards.And I am not the only one who isn't happy:

http://www.blagger.com/db4/company_id/591/companyname/Supreme-O-Glaze.html

 

[ViolentPanda]

I understant that there are issues why people can't move but surely this day and age there is no reason for anyone to have to be living in such conditions, especailly if they are in social housing.

Try telling that to the shoddy maintenance contractors that most local authorities use for work on social housing.
In a perfect world everything would be fine, but in this one...

as for the modern building materials, yes they have changed but there is no reason why they can not deal with the moisture? I live in a cob house with lime plaster and yes they need to breath but there are issues with it too, how I would love to have a square house made out of brick and plaster

I think you've missed my point.
What I'm saying is that modern buildings, with their decent seals between window frame an wall, their well-fitting glazing and doors, and their central heating and internal plumbing lock moisture into the fabric and the internal environment of the property in a way that older buildings, with poor fit to their fixtures and different, more permeable materials used in their construction, tended to "wick away".

Old homes were built on a principle of needing ongoing low-level maintenance (I've absolutely no doubt you spend a good several days of time a year patching your cob, to name but one job ), whereas "modern build" is designed to need little low-level maintenance and specialist intermediate and high-level maintenance, so the materials used are durable, so much so that anything beyond design parameters (say the moist breath of 6 adults living in a four bedroom house rather than 2 adults and four children, or the fitting of double-glazing in a house designed with single-glazed windows in mind) can upset the much more delicate environmental balance in modern housing.

 

[moomoo]

We also have condensation in our new extension. It is only a year old and houses a bedroom and a bathroom with a passageway between that and the existing kitchen.

I have noticed that it is only the rooms at the front of the house that seem to suffer from condensation (and we have double glazing throughout) - why is that?

Does a dehumidifier work room by room or would it clear an entire floor at a time?

Don't understand this

 

[ViolentPanda]

We also have condensation in our new extension. It is only a year old and houses a bedroom and a bathroom with a passageway between that and the existing kitchen.

I have noticed that it is only the rooms at the front of the house that seem to suffer from condensation (and we have double glazing throughout) - why is that?

Could be one (or more) of many reasons, some internal (such as heavy curtains) some external (which direction the windows face, prevailing wind direction etc)

Does a dehumidifier work room by room or would it clear an entire floor at a time?

Don't understand this

If you leave internal doors ajar it will dehumidfy the entire house, and even with the internal doors closed it would get there eventually.
Basically it would do this on the principle of the humidity always seeking equilibrium, so as you dehumidify the houses moisture content equalises, but as you are removing the moisture, the content is equalising downward until it eventually reaches the level you've set the duhmidifiers' humidistat to.
If you want a fairly simple analogy, imagine you've got a mop and a floor one inch deep in water. When you start mopping, every time you mop one bit of floor the surrounding water flows in to re-cover the bit you've mopped, but eventually the water level falls over the entire surface area of the floor, until first it's low enough that the bits you mop stay dry, and then you finally have no more water to mop up. That, in effect, is what the dehumidifier does, mops the excess moisture out of your living environment.

Hope that helps!

 

[WasGeri]

There is an article about this in today's Observer magazine. The bloke reckons that opening a window will not necessarily solve the problem, as the air that comes in could be damper than that already inside.

My walls used to be dripping wet before I got my dehumidifier.

 

[Stobart Stopper]

There was an article in yesterday's Guardian magazine as well.
We are still emptying our dehumidfier up to 4 times a day. It gets worse when the weather turns colder.

 

[WasGeri]

There was an article in yesterday's Guardian magazine as well.

Oh yeah, that was the one. I only read it this morning!

 

[Isambard]

There is an article about this in today's Observer magazine.

You hit 40 and you become a middle class sell out!

 

[satine]

Has anyone ever found a way to do this? Do those 'dehumifiers' actually work?

When you cook, live and sleep in the same room, the steam from cooking tends to make it very damp in winter, or is it just me thats had that problem?

Instead of spending money on a dehumidyfier I'd say the money would be better spent on a small storage heater. These are cheap to run as they use electricity at nighttime when it costs roughly a third of the daytime tarrif and store enough heat to keep you warm throughout the day. I moved into a council flat a year ago which was horribly damp with black mould on most of the walls and my 2 children seemed to be getting poorly all the time which they never had before. I spent the winter with the storage heaters on full and a window partially open in every room which I expected to cost a fortune however I was pleasantly surprised when I got my electricity bill - it wasn't much bigger than usual plus the damp and mould have completely cleared up and don't seem to be reappearing this winter.
We were actually given a dehumidyfer which we've never used as I think they are bad for your lungs as they create an artificially dry atmosphere however if you still want one your welcome too it PM your address and i'll find out about p & pand send it if you want