Humidity Levels in 2 Bedroom Flat

neas

Hi all,

Wife and I have been trying to reduce humidify/mould effects in our flat (using extractor fans for shower/baths), buying those dehumidifer salt bags, using a dehumidifer (Delonghi DEM10 10 litre/day model) and opening windows to ventilate... and heating somewhat.

We know the dehumidifer works as its filling up with water... and we have a monitor recording the temperature and humidiy in bedroom areas.

Im just wondering what are good humidift levels? When i got home after work humidity was 50%... which after having a bath, drying in condensor tumble dryer, and sleeping cooking etc.... has risen to 70% this morning.

We had been using the dehumidifer before bed and before sleeping... our humidity in bedroom was 58%.,.. i suspect the rise might've been due to shower in morning + remainder of moisture moving their later.

Can someone advice me what we should be aiming for? Also i've heard about damp proof course, but how do i know if my flat has it? (Our bedroom is on ground floor but kitchen, living room is on '1st floor').

Thanks

keith969

Its currently 40% in my house this morning...

neas

i believe we are doing everything we can to eliminate our causes... even with a dehumidifer.. so how would we confirm its something the landlord could do?

clutton_2

extracting the moisture with a dehummidifer, is a bit like closing the door after the horse has gone.. you really need to examine ways of not getting the moisture in the first place

opening windows/ventilatin and heating the property really are the answer - these are your responsibility.

If there are structural defects in the external structure of the property which are allowing water to get in - blocked gutters; loose tiles; breached DPC; missing pointing etc etc these are of course the responsibility of the LL

Do you have single or double glazing ? How old is the property ? is it a mid terrace, end terrace, semi, detached ?

neas

Believe me... we do everything to get moisture down.

We left windows ALL day open in fron and back.. with doors open and humidity started at 50%. We even slept with the front window open to try and solve this problem.. we are running out of solutions to try and stop it.

The windows were all covered in mould when we moved in, we removed this and redecorated... thinking last person was a lazy so and so... wife opens windows daily..., we have dehumidifer running 6 hours a night now.. dehumidifer bags and we got the levels shown.

What we had was mould growing in our bedroom on a cupboard.. so we removed cupboardand anything with mould on it.. sprayed mould spray.. but realised the room was humid... only recently got the monitor to tell us how humid it really is.

We don't dry clothes on radiators, use extractor fans and close bathroom door afterwards, we even opened door at night in living room to 'ventilate'.. but thats extreme to stop mould wouldn't you think?

Before we got dehumidifer we'd get problem of alot of condensation on bedroom windows... and mould in bedroom.

Nothing else more we can do... i seen your usual responses to thread to this i'll tick off your usual suggestions

- Dont dry clothes indoor - we dont we use condensor tumble dryer once a week and leave window open
- Ventilation - Window vents are open all time (at night too)
- Baths/Showers - Take bath once a week.. showers daily, we use extractor fan and close door to clean up
- Cooking - Ventilation fan and close door.
- Heating - Property is heated 6 hours a day once we get home

As mentioned humidity with windows ventilating was 50%... rising to 70% after sleeping with windows shut.

neas

The flat is, a middle flat, meaning someone is under us for half of the flat (living rom and kitchen are on first floor). The bedrooms are 'on ground level... (flat is built into hill so garden is elevated above the flats)... the problem bedroom has two external walls of building whereas non-suspect bedroom has a much smaller area.

Above we have no roof as we have a flat above us. I can't see any signs of rising damp, mould seems to grow on clothes in wardrobe, and random bits of furniture (not localised etc).

We have single glazing maybe, the windows are old, but we had our friend check the seals and she thinks they are fine.. Altho the windows have had mould on them before (considerable amount too) which we removed/painted over.

Believe me we've done everything we phycially can to ventilate.. bar sleeping in winter with windows open (which we were doing up to 4 weeks ago... YES it was cold!). Latest thing has been dehumidifer, which we hope will help.

neas

The only thing that could affect us would be breached DPC... because we have a flat above us... so blocked guttering would presumably affect them more than us.

neas

After a little digging.. the 50% humidity was at 18 degrees before bed... this mornign the 70% was at 11 degrees or so..

Using wikipedia and a little maths this increase in relative humidity can be explained because of temp decrease of 7 degrees. So dehumidifer + heating may be in order methinks.

Bongedone

Also no point in using the dehumidifier with the windows open as the humidity outside is high most of the time. One or the other but not both. I shut my bathroom door and leave the window open in there all day whilst at work.

Anything over 65% humidity causes issues.

tyllwyd

About the damp-proof course - that is to stop rising damp in the walls. Have a look outside the house, and about two bricks up from ground level you should probably see a black line in the mortar. But if there is a problem with the damp proof course I'd have thought that would cause a damp patch on the wall inside the house rather than condensation type problems.

If it was me, I'd try keeping the heating on constantly at a low temperature to heat the whole flat evenly - maybe you were sitting in a normally heated room in the evening, then going to sleep in a much colder room so any warm air coming into your bedroom was causing condensation?

What about the carpet - do you think it is OK or do you think there might be mold in it?

Fire_Fox

neas wrote: »

Hi all,

Wife and I have been trying to reduce humidify/mould effects in our flat (using extractor fans for shower/baths), buying those dehumidifer salt bags, using a dehumidifer (Delonghi DEM10 10 litre/day model) and opening windows to ventilate... and heating somewhat.

We know the dehumidifer works as its filling up with water... and we have a monitor recording the temperature and humidiy in bedroom areas.

Im just wondering what are good humidift levels? When i got home after work humidity was 50%... which after having a bath, drying in condensor tumble dryer, and sleeping cooking etc.... has risen to 70% this morning.

We had been using the dehumidifer before bed and before sleeping... our humidity in bedroom was 58%.,.. i suspect the rise might've been due to shower in morning + remainder of moisture moving their later.

Can someone advice me what we should be aiming for? Also i've heard about damp proof course, but how do i know if my flat has it? (Our bedroom is on ground floor but kitchen, living room is on '1st floor').

Thanks

Often extractor fans in flats are next to useless, mine vent into the ceiling void not outside! The little salty bags etc. are designed for small spaces such as inside wardrobes, they will do nothing to reduce the humidity levels in a room. I don't find opening vents or windows a crack for long periods has much effect, probably because all my windows are on one wall so no through draft. I need to open the windows properly for as long as I can handle each day - I aim to do this whilst I am cleaning or even out.

Check your dehumidifier is powerful enough for the space you are treating and check whether it is recommended to use it in one room with the doors closed or open. There is no point in running a dehumidifer whilst the windows are open, this means you are trying to dehumidify the entire world! If possible, I would look to have a full change of air first thing in the morning, then shut windows and pop the dehumidifier on.

Damp proof course is for rising damp not condensation.