Help! Mouldy bathroom ceiling ...

MimiJane

Hi all,

We moved into our present house 2 years ago and, in the last year, have noticed that the artex ceiling in our (tiny) bathroom is getting very mouldy very frequently. Hubby's used various mould solutions, which get rid of it for a while, but it always returns ... obviously too much condensation and not enough ventilation. All there is at the moment is a small fan/grid thingie in the ceiling which obviously isn't enough.

We're planning to have a new bathroom in about a year's time, but does anyone know of any really good mould removers we could use in the meantime? As all the scrubbing has taken some of the artex off, ideally we'd like to treat it and re-paint. Any ideas welcome ...

cargo

Hi does your ceiling curve down to to walls eg: following the slope of the roof.
Just wondered as this is very common on those types.
As it is very hard to insulate the tiny roof space,which is only the depth of the rafters.

MimiJane

No the ceiling doesn't slope. We had the loft fully insulated about a year ago ... don't know if this would make any difference?

Poppycat

Your best if possible to open the window once you had shower/bath for 10 minutes or so.

What we did was I went into the loft and pushed in insulation material with a stick. That cured the problem in two bedrooms we have. The bathroom did have such a problem other than steam when we wash and we just open the window.

We also fastened kingspan to the rafters in the loft to give further insulation.

MimiJane

Poppycat wrote:

Your best if possible to open the window once you had shower/bath for 10 minutes or so.

What we did was I went into the loft and pushed in insulation material with a stick. That cured the problem in two bedrooms we have. The bathroom did have such a problem other than steam when we wash and we just open the window.

We also fastened kingspan to the rafters in the loft to give further insulation.

Sorry to be ignorant, but what's kingspan?

Poppycat

Its like a rigid foam board that can be used as a thermal barrier, it consists of some foam with either side with foil to reflect the heat back in. I attached it to the rafters with screws/washers and right near the edge where the roof meets the celing I had to glue it as I could get in there due to the space. If you attach it to the rafters it leaves plenty of air flow so the rafters wont rot.

Its a very good insulator. It costs me £44 for 11 sheets from a builders merchant. It took I reckon about 30 sheets for our small terraced house.

http://www.kingspan.com/

Ronn1e_2

MimiJane,
White vinegar worked for me so it might be worth trying. Leave it on for as long as possible before rinsing/scrubbing off as mould can't survive in an acid medium.

pabby-ellis

i've looked for white vinegar in the past. is that literally just clear coloured vinegar, or does it specifically say "white vinegar" on the packaging? sorry for the ignorance, but there are other things that white vinegar is good for and i can't seem to locate any.

thanks

MimiJane

pabby-ellis wrote:

i've looked for white vinegar in the past. is that literally just clear coloured vinegar, or does it specifically say "white vinegar" on the packaging? sorry for the ignorance, but there are other things that white vinegar is good for and i can't seem to locate any.

thanks

It normally states "distilled" and looks like water. I used to get a friend to purchase in gallon containers from the local cash and carry, but she can no longer do this, so I get it from Farm Foods where you can get 2 x medium sized bottles for £1. You can also purchase in small/medium sized bottles from most supermarkets.

I use it for cleaning kitchen worktops and getting stains off the carpet ... makes an excellent job and even easily removes ground in red wine stains!

iwanttosave_2

I used a steam cleaner to get rid of mine with the windows wide open and then covered with a stain blocker which prevented them coming back through, its working well for us so far :beer:

Little_John

The mould is forming due to moisture in the air, you need to ensure that you have an extractor fan in the bathroom to remove this. every 5 or so years our fan stops working, and the mould shows up. replace the fan and the mould goes away ntill the fan dies again.

if you have a window in the room open the window as sugested above.