Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Sep 24, 2013 7:12 am I built my house 4 years ago now, it's a brick home with a yellow tongue floor. The rear of the home is 500mm off the ground the front would be 1200mm from the ground. My issue is condensation resulting in mould!! Any advice would be appreciated Re: Condensation help please 3Sep 24, 2013 10:11 am Around the windows mainly.. In the main bedroom it's on the wall behind my dresser.. The base of the bottom drawer in the kids room and some shoes in the bottom of the wardrobe. Re: Condensation help please 4Sep 24, 2013 11:06 am So the mould is in the walls? In the plaster/paint? It sounds like your house overall has a high humidity issue if it's popping up in random dark and low air circulating spaces. You need to look at dropping the humidity - things like extractor fans in the bathroom/s and laundry (if you run a dryer or do a lot of hot loads) and over the stove, increasing air flow in areas that get mould etc. Have you been running a lot of evap. air con or similar adding humidity also? You can get air purifiers that remove humidity, you can do things like the strategic placement of absorbers (in wardrobes or similar) - kitty litter is ideal etc but these are addressing the issue of humidity after the fact - if you can reduce the humidity issue in the first place that's best. I assume your wooden floors are on a concrete pad? So no air flow there.... do you open windows and let a breeze through? I'm not sure why your wooden floor is considered part of this post - can you elaborate your concern for that? Re: Condensation help please 5Sep 24, 2013 12:07 pm The house is on stumps It has gas ducted heating, but the condensation was an issue before the heating went in. Re: Condensation help please 7Sep 24, 2013 12:39 pm Mkay that's some serious condensation on the windows! How on earth are you getting so much wet in the house? I'd look to managing that and your mould problems will literally evaporate. You need to up the air circulation and venting, look at why you are getting such damp in the home. If it's because it's coming through from below the house / in the ground then you need to look at ways to dry it out etc. If this has been a battle for a few years then it's time to call in a professional in my opinion and at least get their advice - there's so many variables here - is it wet ground? Insufficient air flow? Insufficient drainage somewhere? Leaking pipes? etc.... Re: Condensation help please 8Sep 24, 2013 1:21 pm Insufficient information to give an answer re fixing the cause. Posting the area where you live is always a good start. Have you thought about getting a dehumidifier? 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: Condensation help please 9Sep 24, 2013 2:52 pm I'm with you SaveH20 - where is this? Was the house built by a qualified builder or owner build? Was the drainage and water removal all to specification? Where on EARTH is that much condensation coming from? Has the house got a history of damp elsewhere etc? Or major water leaks? What sort of lining is there under the floor boards or is it open to the raw dirt under them, and if so is there a spring running under the house! A little mould in the shoes in the bottom of the wardrobe is actually sadly a fairly normal state of play in humid tropics, and the bottom drawer could be said to be similar. I've dealt with both even in Brisbane. Re: Condensation help please 10Sep 24, 2013 8:09 pm That condensation doesn't have to come from a high moisture source like running a clothes dryer inside without venting it outside, it could be just from the temperature difference between outside and inside with poorly insulated walls and ceilings. Whenever you have that scenario you invariably end up with condensation on all internal surfaces. What kind of insulation do you have in the ceilings and walls and what are they rated at - R2.5 etc ? Stewie Re: Condensation help please 11Dec 17, 2013 4:08 pm SaveH2O Insufficient information to give an answer re fixing the cause. Posting the area where you live is always a good start. Have you thought about getting a dehumidifier? That's what i'm thinking as well, get a dehumidifier it works well in absorbing too much moist. we've been using one (ionmax) Re: Condensation help please 12Dec 17, 2013 4:49 pm Stewie D That condensation doesn't have to come from a high moisture source like running a clothes dryer inside without venting it outside, it could be just from the temperature difference between outside and inside with poorly insulated walls and ceilings. Whenever you have that scenario you invariably end up with condensation on all internal surfaces. What kind of insulation do you have in the ceilings and walls and what are they rated at - R2.5 etc ? Stewie If u have a big temp difference does thus mean u have good insulation. Re: Condensation help please 13Dec 18, 2013 9:40 am It depends more on the dew point. You can have 5ΒΊ C outside and 20ΒΊC inside with poorly insulated walls and ceilings but a gas fire turned up to the max pumping out the heat to warm the house. Where the two temps meet on a cold surface is probably the internal plasterboard lining. Inside is warm, outside is cold plus poor insulation resulting in a big temperature difference, which means you will definitely get condensation on the plasterboard. I'll dig up some links to illustrate this better. Brain Ashworths excellent site http://www.anewhouse.com.au/category/su ... nsulation/ A reasonably good pdf file about condensation. http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://w ... 0WuNDFR7TQ Stewie Re: Condensation help please 14Dec 22, 2013 8:43 am We moved into our renovated and extended weatherboard home about 3yrs ago. The first two winters we were here, we had massive condensation problems (like your images) - on the windows at the front of the house (south facing) and even on the ceiling in our bedroom (drops would even form). We ended up with mould behind our dresser and behind our bed head (nice one!!). And like you, noticed some mould on our shoes in the wardrobe. We put int those buckets of 'damp rid' in the WIR and couldn't believe how much liquid would end up in there in a short space of time. Anyway, we had massive issues with water pooling under our house. A while after we moved in, we discovered that our property actually does not have ANY stormwater drainage. It had some kind of small pit that was nowhere near enough to deal with the water run off (especially after the house had been extended with more roof surface - and given those couple of years of really high levels of rain/floods here in Melbourne). So it all pooled under our deck and house and was constantly wet and/or damp for a while there (took us a while to get to the bottom of that). ALSO, we discovered a leak in our ensuite bathroom which we think was contributing to the dampness in our WIR. We managed to rectify the drainage - somewhat - so that it at least now runs away from the house and mostly off the property. And, we are at the final stages of having our ensuite totally redone (at the expense of the owner builder we bought the house from ). I think the older part of our house (ie our front bedroom/front living room) does not have insulation in the outside walls, so as years go on, if ever we do any work, we will do what we can to insulate (for eg, when we did the ensuite, it was only a small wall, but we took the opportunity to strip the plasterboard and insulate). We are going to remove the fireplace in our front living room at some stage so will strip the entire wall of plasterboard and insulate that wall too. Also, in these older rooms, the glass is the original windows - really thin. We will eventually replace with thicker glass. So, last winter, we didn't get nearly as much condensation and no mould issues. I think ours has to do with the dampness from under the house - compounded by our leaking ensuite which had caused some mould under the floorboards in the bathroom. Both issues now rectified. I think we could do with upgrading our extraction fans in both bathrooms. Oh, and i also think putting actual curtains in our front living room and bedroom (as opposed to the timber venetians) also helped?? Sorry - long rant - and might not help your situation given yours is a new build, but just wanted to share our experience. Something might resonate. Good luck with fixing your problem. HHCIB Re: Condensation help please 15Dec 30, 2013 7:37 pm http://www.homeefficiencygroup.com.au/ have a look at something like this maybe. Condensation like that is common in warm well sealed houses in Tassie. Hope it helps. Re: Condensation help please 16Jan 09, 2014 11:55 am How Hard Can it Be We ended up with mould behind our dresser and behind our bed head (nice one!!). And like you, noticed some mould on our shoes in the wardrobe. We put int those buckets of 'damp rid' in the WIR and couldn't believe how much liquid would end up in there in a short space of time. I think we could do with upgrading our extraction fans in both bathrooms. Oh, and i also think putting actual curtains in our front living room and bedroom (as opposed to the timber venetians) also helped?? HHCIB we've had this problem too before the moulds in the shoes, clothes, side of the windows.. we changed also our blinds to cloth curtains and put exhaust fans and and kept the dehumidifier running almost the whole day works well.. Thankyou so much π I've decided on White on white for doors and trims, White on white 50% on ceiling and Mt buller for walls. Fingers crossed it will look OK π 2 7158 i had the my concreters concrete right up to the fence. I have pits all along my path, so the water tends to drain away from the house and into the pits. There's only one… 7 12773 All 3 items listed are defects and are of concern. Please seek qualified independent inspector and/or legal advice for your state. 1 8219 |