Damp Cellar?! not really sure what to do!

debred86

Hi all!

Just wondering my cellar is slightly damp, i know alot of cellars can be a bit damp but just wondering if theres anything i can do to dry it out so i can use it to store things!

When i say damp, i dont mean theres water allover the floor or anything but the paint on the walls comes off when you touch it (only the walls that face the outside of the house). theres sometimes damp patches on the floors and also if you keep carboard or anything down there it goes a bit floppy after a while.

not sure what the best solution is without spending a fortune!

Thaks guys:beer:

DaftyDuck

Short of spending a fortune, there's often little you can do. You can get the whole place tanked, so it is watertight, but that's £££. No point using a dehumidifier in all likelihood, as it'll just pull moisture out of the walls. Heat it? Improve ventilation if possible? It doesn't sound too badly damp, so it might be worth trying a fanheater on a timer so it only runs for short periods of time. However, I think you may just have to live with it. And grow mushrooms!

shammyjack

6 inch/ 150mm extractor fan with a humidistat should sort it .

andydiysaver

yeah put the extractor fans in, obv extract the bad air to someplace else other than your living space and other than the cellar, drill ventilation through every wall/ceiling you can, and an idea I've found has worked well is the freeflow of air: - get a standing fan, place it somewhere standing, get a maplin time switch, sit there and program it to do every 10 mins in the hour , set, forget, and leave


..as then what you have is improvement in airflow for very little layout that is completely automated.


airflow is enemy of damp really - even if it's damp the damp will sustain itself far less well if there is moving air.