Could wrong home maintenance be making your house damp and mouldy?

[@LiamWetherall]

Hey there! I just wanted to take a moment and say how much I appreciate your videos. As someone who oversees parts of a country estate with a stunning stately home nestled in Oxfordshire, your videos have been an incredible resource for me. The estate is rich in history, with the primary residence dating back to the 16th to 18th centuries. Explaining the intricate materials and building methods employed during that era to the owners can sometimes be quite challenging. However, your comprehensive explanations and thorough breakdowns have made this process significantly easier and more enlightening. I admire how you shed light on the complexities of house construction over time. It's truly commendable. Thank you for being such a valuable resource to those of us entrusted with preserving and maintaining historical properties like ours. Your contributions are greatly appreciated and make a significant difference in our efforts. Keep up the fantastic work!

[@talkingconservation]

Thank you so much, and sorry it’s taken me so long to respond to this! It totally makes the effort of creating the videos worthwhile reading comments like yours so thank you for taking the time to write. I am actually in the final throws of creating something that I know there is a need for, and would really value your early thoughts for tweaks before going live. If you drop me a DM on Instagram I can explain more. 👍

[@fredsmith6725]

Great video and bang on technically. I have a WW1 house with solid walls. I have internally insulated my house with 3inches of Celotex, but onto metal stud wall created making a cavity, which is airbricked to the outside only. The inside is then heated using dehumidifiers only and a woodburner. The difference in temperature is amazing. The mould is gone and so is the anxiety with trying to make such a building warm and effiecient. Please keep the videos coming. Subscribed as of today.😊

[@talkingconservation]

The method you’ve used usually isn’t recommended for traditional buildings to be honest 😬 There is a significant risk of cold bridging, especially between floors at the floor/wall junction - which can result in accelerated decay of the joist ends embedded in the solid walls. Did you insulate between floors?

[@fredsmith6725]

@@talkingconservationThanks for your feedback. Well spotted, and yes potentially a problem. Under the ground floor there is no insulation at the wall or under the floorboards. There is a good 50-60cm of airspace and the floor bearers at each end are sat on a DPC-plenty of airbricks. At the upper floor level there is no insulation on the brick wall itself. The floorboards are not covered in carpets, and have 1-2mm between them to allow humidity to balance in the dead space into the room, so that is effectively being constantly monitored and dried by the dehumidifiers in each room. After 5 years downstairs there is no evidence of mould/rot or wet wood. The joists upstairs are also similarly dry, but have only been insulated this year. I will keep an eye on the situation. Thank you for making me aware. If you have any further questions then great.👍

[@talkingconservation]

@fredsmith6725 fab, sounds like you have most bases covered then. With all these things there are always compromises so I guess it’s how we can mitigate and monitor to reduce risks becoming issues! 👍

[@giuseppinasolinas]

Totally loving your videos, I am getting educated by your honest explanations and I'm really enjoying the understanding of this new knowledge. I will soon apply it all to my new place 💝 Glad you made this one on KZbin as I am sharing it with my friends in Italy with Italian subtitles.

[@talkingconservation]

Most welcome, and thank you for your kind words 🙏

[@oliverwelch1672]

Looking forward to seeing more on this. Hard to find good content related to older uk style housing! Thanks

[@talkingconservation]

Most welcome, more to come certainly 👍

[@Girtonite]

Great primer. Now I understand how to spot cavity wall and solid wall from the outside of the house. As someone with Edwardian cavity battling mould and condensation this was a clear outline. Would love it if you could include links to some of the historic building pdfs in the video description. Thanks and looking forward to the next one.

[@talkingconservation]

That’s a great idea reg the PDFs, thanks 🙏

[@tomfg3738]

I have a 1920s property with solid walls no cavity. Plaster has blown in some areas as you can hear where it’s delaminated. One builder suggested hacking back to brick and applying rockwool to the wall and then plasterboard or dotting and dabbing. Another suggested plastering with hardwall ontop of the existing plaster then multifinish. Is there a better method than others? Worried about interstitial condensation!

[@whittierlewis]

Very interesting! Thank you! 🙋🏼‍♀️

[@talkingconservation]

Most welcome, thanks for watching and the feedback 😁

[@adumsey1164]

Thank you, your explanations are very well thought out 😊

[@talkingconservation]

Thank you. Aiming to try to demystify the things that have baffled me over the years ☺️

[@tatkinson1983]

Great video. We’re in an 1850s cottage with solid stone walls that unfortunately we had silicone rendered. The damp inside hasn’t gotten any worse or better which is one plus as I was worried it might get worse. Currently looking to see if there is anything we can do internally to help and also looking at Positive Input ventilation units to see if this would help so looking forward to checking your future videos. Cheers.

[@talkingconservation]

A solid stone wall will be extremely thick, so that’s probably playing in your favour. I don’t have much personal experience of PIV units but know that if correctly specified they can improve ventilation well in a home. One downside is that in the winter some don’t like the cold draft from the outside air they draw in; heated versions then become expensive to run as it’s effectively a big electric fan heater!

[@tatkinson1983]

@@talkingconservation Thanks for the response. I've since installed a PIV unit, I'm just waiting on the vented roof tiles to arrive before turning it on as the loft doesn't have much ventilation due to the construction of the house so I'll update the results.

[@talkingconservation]

Sounds good. Yes I’d be very interested to hear how you get on with it too 👍

[@tatkinson1983]

Hi, so I’ve installed a PIV unit about 2 week ago. The roof tiles I wanted to install don’t seem to be available so I ended up installing two standard vented roof tiles and running to PIV on setting 2 out of 6. The very next day, all the windows and door handles are completely dry. Usually in the mornings, there are pools of water under every window. The next step is cleaning up the windows and walls of mould and see how it holds up. The air certainly feels fresher but I want to install two more vent tiles as there aren’t any airways in the eves to our loft. With the walls being so thick and a flow of air internally, hopefully this might curve any further damp.

[@talkingconservation]

@@tatkinson1983 sounds like it’s looking really positive and glad it’s made a difference. Is the incoming air heated?

[@TM-bu8hz]

Great video mate. What are your thoughts on external insulation ,what precautions would you follow when installing this type of insulation?

[@talkingconservation]

External isn't as troublesome as internal, BUT personally I would avoid either. The main reason being that a DRY solid wall is actually a reasonably good insulator - despite what the 'book' U-values state. If you concentrate on ensuring the wall can get ,and stay, dry then you've got the best performing wall with minimal risk of issues.

[@static786]

Great content. Learnt a lot. Shame we take such a generic approach to remedial work especially given how different houses can be.

[@talkingconservation]

Thank you, and completely agree - that’s the fundamental message I’m trying to get across in my videos too; we really can’t treat them all the same.

[@userdat1221]

Fantastic video. May I ask your opinion of filling wall cavities with insulation? Would this not defeat the purpose of the cavity? Thankyou.

[@talkingconservation]

Potentially it can yes, as some insulation types that are retrofitted end up damp bridging the moisture through. Also if the insulation ends up staying wet, as some can, then it’s that is a crap insulator so makes the home colder! Specifying and correctly retrofitting cavity wall insulation is critical.

[@iixes]

Great work, If only having listed status provided some sort of protection for buildings from what i have seen in 35 years i know it does not.

[@talkingconservation]

Unfortunately a lot of the issues there are to do with both the process not being fit for purpose and also the system being woefully underfunded 😔

[@Torannach]

Probably a stupid question but these old methods of building still made for much colder buildings than say a modern build. So how can you bring up the level of insulation while also maintaining a breathable wall? Breathable external insulation?

[@talkingconservation]

Not a stupid question at all, and very relevant today. The thing that is often forgotten with permeable building materials is the physics of how they react to moisture. Specifically that a wet/damp all is an appalling insulator, whereas a dry one (with all its tiny pockets of air) is actually pretty good. When we add layers of insulation we slow, or maybe even stop, its ability to get and stay dry - that can have a far bigger impact on its efficiency as an insulator than the layers added. One of the great challenges is first to understand the actual materials the building was constructed with, their condition of repair, and how they interact with their neighbouring materials, then make an assessment of how the building is likely to be used (occupancy levels etc), then the geography/ meteorology now and into the future and then make appropriate recommendations that won’t cause more harm to the building. In some cases you might not be able to improve the efficiency to the same level as a modern efficient home, but equally the thermal masses benefits of old solid built homes means they’re much less likely to over-heat or need air conditioning in the summer months. Much of the above is covered in PAS2035 - all about retrofitting homes.