I live in a stone built end terrace

I’ve been having problems with clothes that don’t get worn that often smelling musty

My wardrobe is against an outside wall because basically there is nowhere else to put it

I’ve been trying to keep windows open as much as possible, but I was thinking today that as it’s constantly horrible and wet outside, is there much point having open windows?

I’ve also thought about boarding the outside wall with insulated plasterboard, but I don’t know if that will solve anything.

Dehumidifier.

Can’t see windows helping much.

We’ve just thermal boarded our walls and it’s made a big difference to how warm it feels in our Victorian house (solid brick).

We’ve also fitted a PIV unit in the loft which seems to have made the house feel fresher.

We were recomended a nuaire drimaster. We’ve got one but its not been in long enough for me to recommend. Gets great reviews. Basically it just helps circulate air around your house.

And avoid putting large pieces if furniture against external walls, air needs to circulate to help prevent damp.

Our row of terraced houses is in a bit of a dip so we come close to flooding every time there’s heavy rain.

After advice from this very forum, I installed three French drains which take water away from the walls. Also fixed the leaky guttering and got a guy in to patch up the holes around the upstairs windows. No more damp!

Get the air circulating. A warm house is lovely. A warm but damp house is a whole different matter though and will be nightmarish before too long.

Dehumidifier. Wonderful things. Especially if you dry clothes in your house.

Check your gutters,We’re end of terrace. Recently found two metres where the roof tiles missed the gutter=damp patch on the ground floor. As well as installing a French drain where the neighbour had built up a “patio” above the damp course.(Which was another damp patch).

Where do you dry your clothes?
After showering do you leave your heavy wet towels to dry indoors?
All this moisture condenses on the coldest wall and feeds the damp, think cold beer can out of fridge on a hot day.
Can you pull the wardrobe forward a few inches?

Google positive pressure ventilation system.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/positive-pressure-ventilation-loft-units-which

Dehumidifier isn’t the answer, they don’t help air circulate

Move wardrobe an inch say from the wall

Raise the temperature of the wall so it’s above the dew point, or lower the dew point temperature by lowering the humidity.

We’ve had a nu-aire drimaster now for two winters and its transformed our solid stone wall 1880’s terrace

I have been looking at the nuaire drimaster on amazon

Do they take moisture from the air?

Would insulation the external walls still her necessary with one of these fitted?

PIV system. It works brilliantly and is a cheap fix for what can be a big problem.

Drimaster does not take moisture from the air. It pumps out cold air which encourages warm air to rise therefore circulating the air in your house.

As others have said, circulate the air. For long term fixes on solid wall properties at work, we tend to overclad the outside or use an internal thermal cladding system like Matilda’s blanket.

CTK has it wrong.

They work by drawing dry air in from your loft space. The manufacturers are quite explicit that if your lift isn’t dry, the units won’t work.

The dry air pumped in forces the moist air out through cracks etc. At the same time the air circulates.

We are expecting one of the new Vax dehumidifiers today, the top model (Vax Power Extract 20L), after getting an e-mail from Vax to buy one at a promotional price of 100 squids.

Our flat has a history of suffering from damp (more of a humidity than mould these days), which I’m now led to believe is at least part of the reason why my general health has not been so good this year (and to some extent other recent years). It’s not helped by drying clothes indoors and having a few fish tanks, but they are not the only reason!

http://www.vax.co.uk/air-dehumidifiers?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160905_Dehumidifiers_Presale&utm_source=Vax&utm_content=Lower+Image

Codes to reduce price to £70/80/100 are…
DEHUM-10L
DEHUM-16L
DEHUM-20L

A dehumidifier isn’t the answer though it only takes moisture out of the air, it doesn’t help it circulate or replace stale air with fresh air.

If you have health issues a dehumidifier really won’t help that much.

You can buy positive ventilation systems for flats.

Thing is, we’re renting and we don’t expect to be here for much longer, hoping to get on the housing ladder by next summer at the latest. Those ventilation systems look interesting, but I suspect you need landlord permission to mess about installing one of them.

If I was renting, I’d be either looking to move into a different place or hassling the landlord to get it sorted.

Condensor dryers can help a bit, if you’re drying clothes indoors, also you get a fair amount of secondary heat.

Condenser driers kick out warm damp air into the house. You want a standard hole in the wall drier if drying clothes is making your house damp.

I put one of these in a bathroom extension.
Awesome thing because it puts a bunch of heat from the outgoing air into the incoming air so reduces heat loss whilst providing ventilation to reduce humidity in the room.

On the other hand, if you are renting and don’t want to try and convince the landlord to do any remedial works to solve the damp problem then you are limited to cracking open the window, or buying and using a dehumidifyer – I used to use one a bit like this http://www.screwfix.com/p/12ltr-dehumidifier/72503. If you are thinking of DIYing your new house then it would come in handy for drying out areas after plastering/painting and is always a handy thing to have for when you need to air dry clothes quickly.

what dknwhy said.

i had a similar flat to you it sounds like.

The Owner had blocked up all the vents at the front of the house to stop you hearing the road. Windows had no trickle vents no nothing.

Result — perminantly damp air and me with respiritory issues for the whole 6 months i lived there – as soon as i moved out i felt like a new man.

Move – lifes to short to live in a damp rental.

Shirley if the problem is damp, then it will help? Maybe not stale air, but I don’t think that’s likely in an old (presumably not tightly sealed) building?

“Voucher code “DEHUM-16L” is not valid.” 🙁

I got the e-mail on Monday and bought 20L yesterday lunch, maybe 200 of the 16L have been ordered with this limited code?

Dehumidifier isn’t the answer, they don’t help air circulate

I disagree: a friend lived in a damp, rented flat, and the landlord provided a good quality dehumidifier after she complained. It made a big difference to comfort levels.

Must be all gone, cheers anyway!

Condenser driers kick out warm damp air into the house. You want a standard hole in the wall drier if drying clothes is making your house damp

No they don’t, the air from ours is bone dry, heats most of the house up whilst it’s at work and gets a good circulation going.

I wouldn’t have believed it either but they’re great things.

The first ~15 hours of having the VAX 20L have been interesting, with humidity readings as high as 72% first thing this morning. After letting it drop rooms to ~58%, the air feels so different (in a good way) and tipping out enough water to have several shaves with into the bathroom sink has been quite an eye opener!