Apologies this is so long but I want to give as much info as possible so please bare with me!
Can anyone please please help save me from my condensation, mould, damp nightmare!!
I bought a ground floor maisonette 3 years ago, it’s about as big as a shoebox which I thought being small would mean it would be cheap to heat and I’d be cosy! Boy was I wrong!
I’ve got gas-fired central heating to radiators with TRV’s powered by a combi boiler; I can only have the heating running for an hour max before it gets too hot to breathe. I have thermometers in the living room & my bedroom, with the heating on the rooms get to a nice 21 degrees but within half an hour of the heating going off the rooms will have dropped to 18 degrees and within an hour they are down to 15 degrees & continue falling.
Despite doing everything I can to reduce the amount of moisture produced I am still living with a condensation nightmare and the delightful black mould! I have got 3 large moisture traps, 1 in each of the worst affected corners & 1 in the alcove I use as a wardrobe, I also have 2 smaller ones, 1 on the window sill in my bedroom & 1 in front of the French doors yet despite constantly emptying them and replacing the crystals my windows are still covered in condensation every morning.
I do not dry clothes indoors because I don’t want anything blocking the heat from the rads, I have a tumble dryer which is properly vented through the wall to the outside, I have an extractor fan in the bathroom on a humidistat and timer, after having a shower I leave the bathroom door closed, the fan continues to run & I leave the window open to make sure the bathroom dries. I don’t drink tea or coffee so rarely boil the kettle and I don’t do a lot of cooking so no pans of water boiling veg or pasta.
I like to let some fresh air in each day so crack the windows open for an hour or so when I get up (unless its pouring down with rain!) I had UPVC double-glazing fitted over a year ago, the windows sound draughty but I can’t feel any draughts, I didn’t have trickle vents fitted at the time because the fitter said “why have nice new windows fitted to block outside noise and keep warm and then go & drill a hole in them!” This made sense at the time but having read page after page of stuff on condensation I decided to look into fitting trickle vents, in the mean time I left the windows locked on the latch but other than creating cold draughts & letting outside noise in it had no affect what-so-ever on the condensation! I live alone and have tried giving up breathing but it’s rather addictive and no one has developed a patch or chewing gum yet!
I decorated everywhere in the summer, I washed all the walls down with mould & mildew killer and painted all of the walls with a fungicidal wash, prior to painting with Therma-coat and then mid sheen emulsion and despite all this I’ve just had to clean black mould off the walls again. My wardrobe is an alcove with a hanging rail and I did have a thin muslin curtain acting as a door, I had a mass clear out in the summer and compared to before there is very little in there yet despite this my clothes feel damp and are going mouldy, I bought a pair of shoes for a wedding, wore them once, stood them in the wardrobe and without noticing not 3 weeks later they were covered in mould and ruined. I have a chest of drawers on the opposite side of my bedroom and the clothes, bed linen and towels in there are all affected by damp & mould too. I’ve tried to keep as much furniture away from the walls as possible but unfortunately this place isn’t much bigger than a shoe box and even where I have left a gap for air flow I’m still getting mould!
The construction of the maisonette is brick & breeze block with a cavity, I am end of terrace and have 3 exterior walls which I am sure doesn’t help. To add to this the leaseholder in the property upstairs has completely removed his central heating system and has not replaced it and the leaseholder of the property next door downstairs does not have any central heating as it broke down and she prefers to get in bed with her electric blanket than get it fixed! Because I’m always cold I looked into having cavity wall insulation but the investigations found that the walls had already been filled but are patchy, even non-existent in places however I’m having no success in getting this rectified because:
1) Being a maisonette both my property and the one upstairs has to be done but I can’t get anyone to even give me a quote.
2) Because it has been done before there may or may not be a guarantee in place for it to be redone as remedial work but there were no details about the cavity wall insulation included with my purchase paperwork and the Freeholder is not being forthcoming; in fact they are outright ignoring me!
I have a suspended wooden floor constructed from 22mm boards; I have laid 6mm Depron (extruded polystyrene) insulation, overlaid with 6mm ply and a quality vinyl. There are plenty of air bricks none of which are blocked, I’ve checked the gutters and downpipe, the ground level outside is below the DPC and there doesn’t seem to be any signs of damp on the walls outside but I’m still considering paint the walls with a water sealer to be sure. I’ve also checked that none of the radiators or pipes are leaking under the floor.
When I decorated I replaced all the skirting boards and despite fixing every hole, gap and crack I could find there are still random draughts coming from who-knows where! I even had some condensation during the summer! I dry the windows every morning and sorely wish I had shares in kitchen roll and moisture crystal companies! I bought a dehumidifier last year, I followed all the instructions and had it running at its maximum setting but barely got a dribble out of it and ended up sending it back. From memory the highest moisture level it read was 62%.
I am sick to death of being cold and I’m at my wits end! Quite frankly if I could sell up & move I would but in the current climate it’s just not an option. I don’t know what else I can do or who / if anyone to call in, can anyone PLEASE help end this living nightmare?
Can anyone please please help save me from my condensation, mould, damp nightmare!!
I bought a ground floor maisonette 3 years ago, it’s about as big as a shoebox which I thought being small would mean it would be cheap to heat and I’d be cosy! Boy was I wrong!
I’ve got gas-fired central heating to radiators with TRV’s powered by a combi boiler; I can only have the heating running for an hour max before it gets too hot to breathe. I have thermometers in the living room & my bedroom, with the heating on the rooms get to a nice 21 degrees but within half an hour of the heating going off the rooms will have dropped to 18 degrees and within an hour they are down to 15 degrees & continue falling.
Despite doing everything I can to reduce the amount of moisture produced I am still living with a condensation nightmare and the delightful black mould! I have got 3 large moisture traps, 1 in each of the worst affected corners & 1 in the alcove I use as a wardrobe, I also have 2 smaller ones, 1 on the window sill in my bedroom & 1 in front of the French doors yet despite constantly emptying them and replacing the crystals my windows are still covered in condensation every morning.
I do not dry clothes indoors because I don’t want anything blocking the heat from the rads, I have a tumble dryer which is properly vented through the wall to the outside, I have an extractor fan in the bathroom on a humidistat and timer, after having a shower I leave the bathroom door closed, the fan continues to run & I leave the window open to make sure the bathroom dries. I don’t drink tea or coffee so rarely boil the kettle and I don’t do a lot of cooking so no pans of water boiling veg or pasta.
I like to let some fresh air in each day so crack the windows open for an hour or so when I get up (unless its pouring down with rain!) I had UPVC double-glazing fitted over a year ago, the windows sound draughty but I can’t feel any draughts, I didn’t have trickle vents fitted at the time because the fitter said “why have nice new windows fitted to block outside noise and keep warm and then go & drill a hole in them!” This made sense at the time but having read page after page of stuff on condensation I decided to look into fitting trickle vents, in the mean time I left the windows locked on the latch but other than creating cold draughts & letting outside noise in it had no affect what-so-ever on the condensation! I live alone and have tried giving up breathing but it’s rather addictive and no one has developed a patch or chewing gum yet!
I decorated everywhere in the summer, I washed all the walls down with mould & mildew killer and painted all of the walls with a fungicidal wash, prior to painting with Therma-coat and then mid sheen emulsion and despite all this I’ve just had to clean black mould off the walls again. My wardrobe is an alcove with a hanging rail and I did have a thin muslin curtain acting as a door, I had a mass clear out in the summer and compared to before there is very little in there yet despite this my clothes feel damp and are going mouldy, I bought a pair of shoes for a wedding, wore them once, stood them in the wardrobe and without noticing not 3 weeks later they were covered in mould and ruined. I have a chest of drawers on the opposite side of my bedroom and the clothes, bed linen and towels in there are all affected by damp & mould too. I’ve tried to keep as much furniture away from the walls as possible but unfortunately this place isn’t much bigger than a shoe box and even where I have left a gap for air flow I’m still getting mould!
The construction of the maisonette is brick & breeze block with a cavity, I am end of terrace and have 3 exterior walls which I am sure doesn’t help. To add to this the leaseholder in the property upstairs has completely removed his central heating system and has not replaced it and the leaseholder of the property next door downstairs does not have any central heating as it broke down and she prefers to get in bed with her electric blanket than get it fixed! Because I’m always cold I looked into having cavity wall insulation but the investigations found that the walls had already been filled but are patchy, even non-existent in places however I’m having no success in getting this rectified because:
1) Being a maisonette both my property and the one upstairs has to be done but I can’t get anyone to even give me a quote.
2) Because it has been done before there may or may not be a guarantee in place for it to be redone as remedial work but there were no details about the cavity wall insulation included with my purchase paperwork and the Freeholder is not being forthcoming; in fact they are outright ignoring me!
I have a suspended wooden floor constructed from 22mm boards; I have laid 6mm Depron (extruded polystyrene) insulation, overlaid with 6mm ply and a quality vinyl. There are plenty of air bricks none of which are blocked, I’ve checked the gutters and downpipe, the ground level outside is below the DPC and there doesn’t seem to be any signs of damp on the walls outside but I’m still considering paint the walls with a water sealer to be sure. I’ve also checked that none of the radiators or pipes are leaking under the floor.
When I decorated I replaced all the skirting boards and despite fixing every hole, gap and crack I could find there are still random draughts coming from who-knows where! I even had some condensation during the summer! I dry the windows every morning and sorely wish I had shares in kitchen roll and moisture crystal companies! I bought a dehumidifier last year, I followed all the instructions and had it running at its maximum setting but barely got a dribble out of it and ended up sending it back. From memory the highest moisture level it read was 62%.
I am sick to death of being cold and I’m at my wits end! Quite frankly if I could sell up & move I would but in the current climate it’s just not an option. I don’t know what else I can do or who / if anyone to call in, can anyone PLEASE help end this living nightmare?
