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Mould spores are in the air where ever you are, indoors or out, here or North Pole. They just move about in the convected air currents looking for some where to land and grow. Growing requires both food and water. Remove the water mould growth stops dead. With a single skin wall, you will...

but open fires are carbon neutral aren't they (well wood burning ones) Are wood fires carbon neutral? They may well be at a technical level? However, when you walk through our village on a winters day, and there is an area of high pressure, the air is full of wood smoke, sometimes its...

As you are no doubt aware, mould will grow on any damp surface where there is something it can eat, and plasterboard is an ideal food source. I would guess, from what you write that, the walls are very cold, no insulation and they are damp from the water vapour breathed out by the dogs. You...

http://www.entecuk.com/news03_50_f.html Level 6 – the zero-carbon level -will require investment in district heating (wood chip heating)– will require the use of solar panels, or wind turbines in order to replace entirely the energy taken from the national grid. The additional points to...

There are 26.7 million or so homes in the UK. Over 20 Million of them are heated with gas. Really!

Basically wooden ground floors are difficult to make and difficult to insulate. The logic of a wooden ground floor goes back to days of open fires and lots of drafts, with air being sucked under the floors by the fires. Open fires have mostly gone and from 2016 they will be banned in new...

I am puzzled, why heat a porch? When you open the door all the heat blows away. A porch is usually merely a buffer against the outside weather and noise, helping to stop all the warm air from indoors disappearing. There is no set way to decorate a porch, factors to take into account are, does...

The first thing to do is dig a hole in the garden and ascertain how high the water table is. If the water table outside is lower than inside then a French drain round the bungalow will help, to lower the water, if there is somewhere to drain the excess water too. The surface of the French...

When insulating a wall it is always best to insulate on the cold side and in this case you need at least two inches to make it worth while. Make sure to use a closed cell insulation like polystyrene or simler and make sure there are no holes or gaps where the heat can escape, fix the insulation...

A five inch diamond tipped core drill isn't that expensive from Machine Mart, however the drill to drive it safely is, you need enough power and a decent clutch otherwise you risk a broken wrist. And it does take a long time. A series of holes in a circle is a lot cheaper.

OK, so you probably have the answer. Having eliminated all the usual suspects. We probably have a case of wind driven rain. Is this wall in an exposed position? What can happen, is that the wind blown rain hits the wall at the speed of a bullet and under constant wind pressure it is forced...

If you can water the garden with a hose, you can spray foam.

markwm, you are quite right! Warm air holds more water vapour than cold! Air at 30 C holds 30 ml of water per cubic metre. Air at zero C holds 5 ml of water per cubic metre. When warm humid air meets a cold surface, the air temperature drops and the water vapour turns into condensation...

This problem is quite common. When homes had open fires and badly fitting doors and windows the drafts used to help keep them dry during the winter and during the summer the problem disappeared. My own home is built into a slope and when we moved here water ran down the hill through the...

You can see that we have all slept in garden sheds and things without heating and not come to any harm. Usually during the summer. If you want to insulate your shed then visit Wicks, they sell polystyrene sheets at one, two or four inches thick, it is not expensive and you can cut it to size...

Your best bet is to insulate the underneath of the stairs and landing. There is no point in insulating the doors to the cupboard or doing anything else as you do not want to waste heat, heating a basically unused cupboard. You will find that polyurethane foam sprayed over everything, at least...

The problem is that steel gets very cold, it attracts the moisture in the air, that condenses onto it, freezes and then melts and drips onto your car or whatever. The solution is to spray poly foam onto the underneath of the roof, foam will stop the condensation. Or suspend a plastic sheet or...

What you have is a damp wall. The wall is drying out and as it does so it brings salts to the surface. It may not look very nice but, it does no harm. However, you may care to investigate where the damp is coming from? Check things like leaking gutter, roof, pipes, cracks in wall, poor...

The questions to ask are, did it happen during the summer? Does it happen during the day or only during the night? Condensation usually happens at night, when the heating is turned down or turned off, or after the blinds or curtains have been closed. The problem is caused by a drop in...

Pull up the boards and start again, use screws.