This morning I happened to pull the washing machine away from its housing under a worktop and against the kitchen wall, for no other reason than that I regularly do that sort of thing in order to check for problems. I found that the floor, which is plastic tiles on concrete, was pretty wet, but I wasn't particularly concerned because the copper pipework for the washing machine was festooned with tiny droplets of water, indicating nothing worse than condensation. I say nothing worse...but...
...whilst I had the machine out I noticed that underneath the adjacent sink unit the wall was black with mould and there were droplets of water adhering to the underside of the baseboard of the cabinet. I squirted as much mould killer as I could into the space, but clearly there's an issue there that goes way beyond cleaning. The previous owner has presumably diagnosed the problem as rising damp because there are injection holes along the wall outside the problem area, but I'm pretty sure its condensation.
I cleaned the mould at the back of the same cupboard about two months ago, but when I removed the contents today to check the backboard I found that the mould is back with a vengeance.
The property was built circa 1973 and has concrete floors throughout.
As to solutions, well--apart from cleaning, I'm a bit stumped. Would installing an airbrick in the problem area, underneath the unit, be likely to help? The kitchen has a decent extractor system but clearly it cannot address the problem of damp caused by condensation behind fixed units.
Any suggestions as to an approach to this problem welcome.
Edit: the seal between worktop and wall appears to be sound and I can't find any evidence of leaks in the kitchen waste pipes. Nor are there any pipes in the problem area behind the unit.
...whilst I had the machine out I noticed that underneath the adjacent sink unit the wall was black with mould and there were droplets of water adhering to the underside of the baseboard of the cabinet. I squirted as much mould killer as I could into the space, but clearly there's an issue there that goes way beyond cleaning. The previous owner has presumably diagnosed the problem as rising damp because there are injection holes along the wall outside the problem area, but I'm pretty sure its condensation.
I cleaned the mould at the back of the same cupboard about two months ago, but when I removed the contents today to check the backboard I found that the mould is back with a vengeance.
The property was built circa 1973 and has concrete floors throughout.
As to solutions, well--apart from cleaning, I'm a bit stumped. Would installing an airbrick in the problem area, underneath the unit, be likely to help? The kitchen has a decent extractor system but clearly it cannot address the problem of damp caused by condensation behind fixed units.
Any suggestions as to an approach to this problem welcome.
Edit: the seal between worktop and wall appears to be sound and I can't find any evidence of leaks in the kitchen waste pipes. Nor are there any pipes in the problem area behind the unit.