Mould in Recently purchased house

Davesnave

The salient point here is that condensation varies greatly between different families' lifestyles, so you will never be able to prove one way or the other what the humidity was like when the surveyor visited.

Doozergirl

DeanE153 wrote: »

In August me and my partner purchased our first home.

Over the last couple of months we have had a fairly bad issue with mould in 2 of the bedrooms upstairs. I called in a damp proofing company to take a look and see what is causing the issue and he has advised us that the issue is with condensation and there is no ventilation to any of the rooms upstairs, There is one vent to one of the rooms which has been plastered over and the other rooms have nothing at all.

We have decorated one of the rooms in question and it has ruined wallaper so needs to be done again. In addition to that we need to get a PIV system installed in the loft to ventilate the house which wont be far off £1000 when taking into account buying it and fitting.

My question is should this have been picked up on the initial survey when purchasing the property - A small amount of rising damp was detected on the ground floor but we got a damp and timber report done before completion which advised everything was ok. We have put in a complaint to the surveyor which has been rejected and the next step of their procedure is to take it to senior management with them. before I do this I was wondering if anyone here had dealt with anything similar and had any success?

If we have to pay out of our own pockets we will but I thought we should have at least been made aware from the initial report done.

I'm going to take you back a step here. There is absolutely no need for a PIV unit at this point if you have established that there is no ventilation. These damp specialists just sell things. There is almost certainly a simpler, cheaper solution.

You need trickle vents installed in your windows. Do you have sealed fireplaces in there? If so, open them up. That will help enormously. The other option is to install a couple of airbricks. All much cheaper than PIV.

You can also upgrade your bathroom extractor so that it runs when it senses humidity, not just when the light is on.

Are you heating the affected rooms? Sufficient heating is important to keep the walls at a temperature where water does not want to condense.

What about insulation? Are the walls insulated. Again, this goes a huge way to keeping the room warm. Costs money but will pay you back in reduced bills.

Just opening windows is not the best way to help. And PIV is simply paying money for old rope to your 'damp specialist'. The key here is heat and ventilation.

As far as the surveyor is concerned, a basic survey is going to show nothing, but even one with bells and whistles cannot spot something that isn't there. It may be that the previous owners lived differently or, shock horror, painted over it!

I suspect your rising damp doesn't exist either. Is there any actual evidence of it? In what form?

Doozergirl

Grenage wrote: »

It's almost always a problem with lifestyle; drying clothes indoors, not ventilating the property, etc.

No it isn't almost always a problem with lifestylr.

Most people in this country can have the luxury of drying their clothes on radiators and not opening their windows.

The problem usually has something to do with the building fabric, whether it's the way a house is built or it being altered over time. British houses are built breathing with airflow running through them. People start sealing them up and problems occur.

Lifestyle can and will affect it but everybody should be able to live, producing reasonable amounts of moisture without having to worry about mould spores.

Norman_Castle

DeanE153 wrote: »

There is one vent to one of the rooms which has been plastered over and the other rooms have nothing at all.

In addition to that we need to get a PIV system installed in the loft to ventilate the house which wont be far off £1000 when taking into account buying it and fitting.

Its unlikely to be difficult or expensive to reinstate the covered vent and install more.

I suspect many homes may benefit from a PIV system but I expect very few need one.

DeanE153

Thanks everyone for your replies so far.

Doozergirl wrote: »

I'm going to take you back a step here. There is absolutely no need for a PIV unit at this point if you have established that there is no ventilation. These damp specialists just sell things. There is almost certainly a simpler, cheaper solution.

You need trickle vents installed in your windows. Do you have sealed fireplaces in there? If so, open them up. That will help enormously. The other option is to install a couple of airbricks. All much cheaper than PIV.

You can also upgrade your bathroom extractor so that it runs when it senses humidity, not just when the light is on.

Are you heating the affected rooms? Sufficient heating is important to keep the walls at a temperature where water does not want to condense.

What about insulation? Are the walls insulated. Again, this goes a huge way to keeping the room warm. Costs money but will pay you back in reduced bills.

Just opening windows is not the best way to help. And PIV is simply paying money for old rope to your 'damp specialist'. The key here is heat and ventilation.

As far as the surveyor is concerned, a basic survey is going to show nothing, but even one with bells and whistles cannot spot something that isn't there. It may be that the previous owners lived differently or, shock horror, painted over it!

I suspect your rising damp doesn't exist either. Is there any actual evidence of it? In what form?

Trickle vents are installed on all windows downstairs but not upstairs so definitely something we need to look at. Fireplaces are already open.

the downstairs bathroom has an extractor but the (bigger) upstairs bathroom does not. Just seems that the house has ok ventilation downstairs but not much upstairs.

Thank you for the information on the PIV system, the damp specialist presented it to us as one of 2 options along with a vent for each room but as the price was not massively different he sold that as the better option of the 2,

On the rising damp thing - they said they had detected a small amount on the ground floor and asked us to obtain a damp and timber report before completion which we did, that report came back ok and we have not noticed any problems downstairs at all, it's just upstairs.

HouseBuyer77

I was getting black mold in my bedroom the first winter I moved in.

There was condensation forming on one wall, which is an external wall.

At first I simply pulled the furniture slightly away from the wall, which kept it drier. I also started sleeping the bedroom door open a crack, or alternatively the window slightly open (my double glazing units latch in a position that lets a bit of air in, believe it's a pretty standard feature). These things have kept the mold at bay, though there was still some condensation, it seemed to be drying out without issue.

Recently I've rearranged the bedroom entirely so that external wall has almost no furniture up against it (one end of a chest of draws only), the rearrangement has also exposed the radiator (previously the bed was up against it at the headboard). I'm using a slightly lighter duvet, previous one was very warm, too warm, and a I'm a hot sleeper (generating yet more moisture).

With the the recent rearrangement I find the walls stay dry.

Simply getting some passive vents fitted may do the trick, may not even need to vent to the outside, if the damp bedroom air vents into the dry hallway it spreads the moisture around and reduces the amount of condensation that can form.

Alternatively can you rearrange furniture? You don't want furniture up against the walls that get the condensation and you want to ensure radiators are uncovered so can properly heat the room.

Grenage

Doozergirl wrote: »

No it isn't almost always a problem with lifestylr.

Most people in this country can have the luxury of drying their clothes on radiators and not opening their windows.

The problem usually has something to do with the building fabric, whether it's the way a house is built or it being altered over time. British houses are built breathing with airflow running through them. People start sealing them up and problems occur.

Lifestyle can and will affect it but everybody should be able to live, producing reasonable amounts of moisture without having to worry about mould spores.

Sure it is; cold surfaces and high moisture result in condensation; you can either reduce the moisture content, and/or increase surface temperature.

Every kg of extra weight in wet washing is about a litre of water being dumped into the air; tie that in with no extraction for showers and cooking, or open windows, and you're !!!!!!ed. That's lifestyle choices, not the fault of the building.

LittleMax

DeanE153 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your replies so far.


the downstairs bathroom has an extractor but the (bigger) upstairs bathroom does not. Just seems that the house has ok ventilation downstairs but not much upstairs.

Presume you use the upstairs bathroom the most. If so - installing an extractor fan in the upstairs bathroom - and using it is the way I'd go.

csgohan4

Open batHroom windows when you finish and close the door


opening the window vents in the rooms it is a problem.


Low heat in all rooms

westernpromise

Has it been replastered recently? It takes two winters for plaster to dry. The first place I bought in London was a new conversion and the first autumn I was there I found black mould inside the cupboards and on several mornings I woke up with dew on top of the duvet (and I hadn't even been drinking). I had a washer-drier so it wasn't my laundry doing it.

I had to repaint but it went away after that.