Cold and Damp

donnalou

We live in the most gorgeous rented flat with original features including the original outside wall along one side. It looks lovely but with no instulation its freezing. The bedroom is at the end with two red brick walls so its even worst!There is also a smell of damp and drying washing is a nightmare. We have oiled fired heating. Which is so expensive (£400 worth lasted 6 months through the summer)I thought that putting the heating on to help with drying the washing but i'm so scared of the cost.

I would be grateful for any ideas or suggestions of how to keep warm and dry washing.

Thanks Donna

black-saturn

Theres a thread I started in the Old Style section about getting washing dry if thats any help. Other than that have you thought about a fan heater?

Magentasue

What you need is to keep the flat warm and keep it ventilated. Our old house has a nice range of ventilation devices - sash windows and chimneys! Drying washing in a cold house is a recipe for damp. Because it's cold, you don't want to open windows to ventilate, washing hangs around forever and damp and mould follow.

If you can afford one, I would recommend a dehumidifier. Put it somewhere central but out of the way so that you can put your airer with damp washing near it. Aim to keep the flat warm - it's better to keep a constant, warm temp than having it hot sometimes and cold others. By that I mean don't let the place get really cold, I don't mean keepit heated when you're not in.

HTH

Magentasue

There's a thread on Old Style about Wet Windows that has useful advice.

Fraserca

Forgive my ignorance but where is the Old Style section ?

black-saturn

Here's the wet windows thread:

Wet Windows

and heres the one on getting washing dry:

Getting Washing Dry

sneekymum

Magentasue wrote:

If you can afford one, I would recommend a dehumidifier. Put it somewhere central but out of the way so that you can put your airer with damp washing near it.

Top sugesstion - wouldn't be without ours - it extracts 2 litres a day from our house. :T

squiggles

sneeky mum,have you noticed a huge difference in your electric bills since buying your dehumidifier.Im thinking of getting one only i am a little frightened of huge bills.

Fran

Fraserca wrote:

Forgive my ignorance but where is the Old Style section ?

CLICK HERE for Old Style.

Smiley_Mum

squiggles wrote:

sneeky mum,have you noticed a huge difference in your electric bills since buying your dehumidifier.Im thinking of getting one only i am a little frightened of huge bills.

Ditto, I'd like to know too as I'm considering getting one too.

Fran

As it's rented what about mentioning the damp problem to your landlord? He/she might not be aware that there is a problem - if it's a decent landlord they should try to sort it out (though I'm not sure how many of those there are about!).