From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

rtandon27

Morning Afternoon Greying - popping on to give you my two cents on our experience with the brand of dehumidifier mentioned in that article.

I'll start off by saying that I am in love with ours.  We have had the same brand & type for many years, having experienced damp in all our rental properties to varying extents.  It's the 8L desiccant & though we bought it only for keeping the house dry, it has become our appliance of choice for drying cloths in the winter as well.  Now that we have our own place, it is vital to run it as the '60s extension on the back of the Victorian terrace is prone to dampness as it contains the bathroom, combi-boiler and hob/oven which run on gas. 

My Canadian bones & joints just can't handle the damp and cold even after all these years, and I also am very adverse to the smell of musty part-dried clothes!  We find that one appliance is enough for an entire house, we run it in the dampest part of the house which is also where we have room to hang a load of laundry.  As it is so light and portable, the appliance is easily moved to any other part of the house temporarily when needed. The combination of removing moisture from the air along with the warm air from the dehumidifier is just enough that we can keep our heat off for a nice chunk of the day, especially if the sun is shining too! (I also don't need to run around the house drying windows every morning which means less grumpiness 😉)

Please do keep in mind that if you run it daily during cold weather, the life span is about 2 to 2.5 years (just over the warranty period of course.) and by the time it needs a tune-up/repair there is a new model out & parts for the old one make it too expensive to make it worth fixing.  With our most recent purchase, I took our an extended warranty to see if it might mitigate the need to buy a new one.

The only other form of dehumidifying that we do is a hanging refillable mini one in each of our cupboards, as I'd be loathe to loose any of our clothes to the ravages of mold!

Will wander off for now, as I'm jealous of you being caught up with laundry and should really put a load in while I step away from the laptop for a (work from home) lunch break!

Greying_Pilgrim

Hey RT - thanks for this informative post 😁

I have looked into it - I thought the positioning information was very interesting.  And for sure we would have to have one that had been designed with 'UK' homes in mind - as we don't have as much room as the lass demonstrating had in her hallway/landing.  I shall be honest though, the thought of leaving doors open scares me - I mean, I get the why but any room at the back of the house is soooooooooo much colder than any other rooms, I just think it would make it very difficult to have anywhere comfortable - we would have gales - not drafts - flowing from room to room.  At the moment, it is academic as that particular company seem to be OOS for all their product anyway, but I think that a dehumidifier on the landing would work, but it would be difficult to see how it could improve the kitchen issue (downstairs), and it would also make it that a clothes airer would have to be located in a bedroom (probably ours) to encompass any clothes drying.  Putting damp clothes, on an airer, in a bedroom is going to take some getting my head around. 

Given that they are OOS, I have time to save up anyway, but I think that the dehumidifier would operate best in our home after we had installed better glazing.  My thought process is that at the moment, I don't think one feature is going to help "solve" the issues we have.  I suspect that we need a number of factors to work in tandem to make the environment the best it's going to be.  We started with replacing the heating system, put the loft insulation up to standard, and I think better windows/door will help, and then I see the dehumidifier as the final piece in the jigsaw.  

It's one of these situations where you wish you could 'try before you buy' (that goes for double/triple glazing, ground source heat pumps/Air source heat pumps etc etc).  

At the moment I am trying to (manually) remove as much excess moisture as possible, and I have employed the 'shock ventilation' method (only started yesterday) - in addition to leaving as many windows open as I can, for a couple of hours, to help dry them.  I think there was less condensation this morning, but then LG and I were out of the house for a time, maybe I didn't cook for as long, maybe DH didn't boil the kettle as much or maybe it just wasn't quite as cold last night.  Tonight/tomorrow morning may well present a different picture. 

Thanks for your help RT, I appreciate all help and suggestions - anything that makes me 'think through things' is always welcomed.    

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Right,  I have had another look at that particular company, and they do have some de-humidifiers in stock - poss the one RT has?  But it says that it can be wall mounted and still work?  How does that meet the requirement of being 12" away from a wall - which is what they say their other model - the 'Ar*te' overcomes......🤔  Now confuzzled.  Would still need to find £200 from somewhere, but wondering if the kitchen would be a good location for one to start with - in theory there is "some" space, there is a socket available and it is one of the major sources of condensation/is stone cold at the back of the house 🤔

Anyhoo, things to do.

Greying X

badmemory

My dehumidifier was an impulse buy or to be more truthful an I am fed up with this buy.  We had an extractor fan in the bathroom & all it seemed to do was drag a draught all through the house.  So there I was in the centre aisle & one of the special buys was the dehumidifier, so I bought it.  From having to have the fan on 24/7 to get the damp out we went down to a maximum 2 hours (he once had the humidity up to 90%).  I keep waiting for it to break but it has been 7 years now, but I want one with an auto cut out when it reaches the desired humidity as he keeps forgetting to turn it off.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Afternoon MFW'rs

I hope all is well with you and yours.

I did choose to go grocery shopping, but left it until later, so that the car was fully defrosted by the sun, and the commuter traffic had had its chance to work through the road system.

I spent an eye-watering £38.87 today, on very, very little.  I did take advantage of sweet potatoes being in the MrL promo (89p/1 kg bag), and picked up some XXL frozen spinach which I spotted by chance - having forgotten that I had actually seen the offer - but both these items will go in new recipes that I am going to try in new weeks meal planner.  I did also get a box of fake mini-ma*num$ in the XXL offer too.  I got YS'd (large) wholemeal rolls and a YS'd tub of coleslaw that weren't in the budget, but the coleslaw will be used tomorrow and the rolls stashed in the freezer for a future 'soup and sandwich' night.  I did buy a little alcohol and a bottle of branded blackcurrant drink that is nice warmed when you've got a cold, and also is an occasional 'treat' for LG - they are normally encouraged to drink tap water (they are not super keen on milk, and haven't ever been, which as you can imagine, led to interesting times prior to weaning!).  I did also purchase multivitamins for LG - I hadn't been informed they were running out (DH sorts all that in the morning at breakfast), so didn't realise they were needed.  As I only had to go to MrS for those (in same locale as MrAl and MrL), I bought 2 tubs, one for now, and one in store.

We ended up having soup and a sandwich for tea last night.  It wasn't what I thought I was going to do, but a friend sent through a recipe for a lentil soup they'd had in a cafe.  I had all the ingredients in, and knew LG would like it, as it was not dissimilar to our dhal recipe, so........  Clean plates all round.  Tonight's tea has already been made and will just need heating up, it is Rose Elliots vegetarian version of Cocido (which you all know is a Portugese/Spanish stew, normally heavy on the various components of a pig).  But the veggie version is surprisingly tasty, and still benefits from being made in advance/reheating.  I had the small portion of soup left over from last night for lunch just now with a crust of bread.  Unusual for me to have a hot lunch, but welcome today!

I can't think of anyway that I have 'saved' any pennies today.  The way the grocery budget is going, I think I will have to wait to see if there is anything left of my £200 at the end of the month.  I don't hold out much hope given the amount of kitchen roll being used to dry windows 😕

I purposely didn't put a wash on today, as despite forecast sunshine, I thought the lingering cold would undo anything that the breeze might achieve.  Initially it was quite still, although the breeze has got up now (with the wind cutting everyone in two in the carpark at the supermercados).  The sunshine is glorious though.  

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Ha ha, spoke too soon.  The postie just brought a refund from our old mobile contract.  It's not alot of dosh, but I'll split it with LG and put £1 in their 'C4C' pot.  Happy Days!

Greying X

Pollie

Would it be cheaper to use a microfibre cloth to dry the windows although apparently a bowl of salt will soak up condensation -- have never tried this personally. You can also buy shrink fit film to use as a form of double glazing. Available on amazon.

greenbee

I used to use old rags for drying the windows - which works well if you have enough to let them wait to dry outside. The film DG is also a good idea. My mum also used to put silica gel on the windowsill - it was in little sausages made out of the kind of bandages you use for fingers tied at each end, but I bet old socks and tights would work. You can then dry it out on a dry day or in a cooling oven. 

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

Pollie - I would love to do the 'bowl of salt' - something would be better than nothing.  But there is absolutely no way that LG would be able to keep their fingers out of it 🤣  Cloths and rags would be an option if I was just wiping down the glass or UPVC that had moisture on them.  Unfortunately I am wiping down wooden windows with peeled paint, mould and condensation, so the cloths would get pretty minging, pretty quickly.

greenbee - I had considered the film stuff, but I am not sure whether the frames are good enough to get a reasonable adhesion from the tape that then holds the film, as I had also pondered about the perspex sheets that fit with magnets.

It is interesting that DH and I have a different approach to things.  He is definitely in the 'close the windows against the cold' mindset, whereas I know that you need some ventilation.  Unfortunately our current window design doesn't aid opening windows 'a crack' at night, which I am sure would help.  As when I went to bed, our bedroom windows were relatively clear of condensation - this morning I cannot see out of them for condensation - so of course, it is us breathing/cold panes that is causing the issue.  

Right, I set a 500g bag of black beans that I got YS'd from MrL some time ago (yes, they have moved house with us 🙄), on to soak overnight, and they look to have plumped up nicely, so I will pop them in the PC later, cook them and then decant them into storage boxes and pop into freezer for future meals.  I would like to include a black bean burger recipe in a meal plan in the near future - I can't recall if LG has had them to try.

Tea last night was OK.  LG helped me to make dumplings to go in the cocido.  They weren't super light - I'm wondering if I didn't have the stew hot enough for long enough to cook them properly - but they were better than the efforts we did in the slow cooker a few months ago.  Even LG could see that we'd made some progress, so 'tick' in the cookery/physics lesson box 🤣  I don't necessarily think that cocido would be amongst LG's favourite dishes, but they did eat it up, and don't no-one tell 'em, right, but there was swede, parsnip AND potato in the dish, and in quite large chunks.........

Tea tonight is burger baps, a few oven chips and coleslaw side for those that will eat.  I will also make an apple crumble and maybe a cake for the tin if I can sustain the enthusiasm - LG will be keen to help, but that isn't always the best solution....

Meter reading day for the energy provider today, so must get onto that after the school run.

I had a good nights sleep last night - about 8 hours.  I do feel a different woman for a good sleep, I must admit.

I had better get a clothes wash on just now - last good day (weatherwise) for a while if the forecast is to be believed.  

Could be a nsd today, as I can't think of anything that we need.  Right, better shuffle orf as I haven't prepped LG's snap yet, and I've got to get the washing in train too - at least the rushing around will keep me warm - cold start again with us this morning.

Thanks for popping in and for the conversations - it is always appreciated, and I like to consider options, so appreciate suggestions.  

Greying X

greenbee

I remember the days of flaking, rotting window frames well, GP, and don’t envy you at all. Likewise not having night latch having to keep them closed in cold weather. Prior to that I had crittall windows (and grew up with them too) but at least they had a night latch so could be kept ventilated! Rags are only really an option if you have a large enough supply to be able to get them rinsed and dried easily. But it might be worth looking for the blue paper roll that builders etc use as I’m pretty sure it’s cheaper. 

I’ve found layers at the window really help - even now with decent DG. Blinds close to the glasss, then on the outside of the recess, then curtains over the top. Preferably with thermal lining. Although while your windows are in a bad state, nothing you love as they may get damp and mouldy. I have some thermal/blackout roller blinds that I’ve taken out of this house that you are welcome to if they would fit - PM me if you’re interested. They’re off-white, with some marks, so you could dispose of them later with a clear conscience!