My thoughts follow:
This is a perennial
problem – Portsmouth’s terraced housing stock was designed before central
heating and double glazing and even if the knowledge had existed to handle
issues such as damp in these houses, it is unlikely they’d cope with 4-5 adults
in a house, having daily showers and drying washing.
The houses were built in a time
when ‘having a bath’ was a weekly event and open hearths and single glazing
ensured maximum ventilation. So damp and condensation would never have been an
issue.
However, maximum ventilation
equates to cold and uncomfortable from a modern perspective so we have
rectified that with blocked hearths, double glazing and central heating. This
lack of circulation or the ability for a house to ‘breathe’ is exacerbated by
laminate floors, fire doors and particularly with students, the fact that all
internal doors are closed most of the time.
You then add moisture to this
equation with regular showers and much washing (remember when the houses were
built, wash day was once a week and all washing was dried outside) and
unsurprisingly, we get condensation and the resultant mould.
I find the worst spots are the
corners of walls where the ‘cheap/quick’ cavity wall insulation leaves cold
spots and it does not help in student houses that they let the houses get quite
cold. One of the reasons more and more of my houses are now ‘all inclusive’.
So what can be done? Humidity
sensing extractors in bathrooms are a must. Set them to 50-60% humidity.
The surfaces in the bathroom also need to be mould proof – think all surfaces
tiled or covered in vinyl, otherwise you will decorate annually. Having fixed
the bathroom, the other problem is how to dry washing. Tumble driers are
the ideal answer – but students paying electricity bills will not use them and
where I have used them in ‘all inxclusive’ properties they have been overused
and bills have been huge, so they have now been removed.
What we need is a low cost
alternative to a tumble drier that dries clothes without allowing the moisture
into the air in the house. Outside washing lines are good but during the
student year, it is often too wet and cold for this to be of use – so they dry
on small airers indoors.
Many council maisonettes have
communal drying rooms – slatted walls front and back allowing the wind through
but coupled with the roof, keeping the rain out. These work well but in the
limited space available in the average HMO, are probably not practical unless a
loft conversion is planned anyway.
I remember in days past my
family used a ‘Flatley’ which was an electric drying cabinet for washing. Not
ideal as it did not capture moisture but a modern day alternative based on
electrically generated airflow rather than heat would definitely prove popular
in all of my houses.
The more interesting question is
what happens when current housing stock is replaced with Code 4 or even Code 6
building standards? These will ensure that even small families will experience
condensation and mould where today, it tends to be restricted to houses at full
capacity.
