Damp in fitted wardrobes (Ed.)

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Hello, we have damp in wardrobes (made to look fitted) so clothes are going mouldy, using a dehumidifier as much as possible, the same side of the house but downstairs beneath the bedroom has also been damp including the corner of that room. A start was made on the pointing & guttering checked, the down pipe was checked it was going into the ground, does anyone think it could be cavity insulation required (stupidly didn’t get a damp survey when moved in a year ago), rest of the house/other bedroom on same side of house & back living room seems ok….hope I have explained this well enough & really appreciate any advice please :)
 
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Shouldn't be a back to wardrobes. Just the wall at the back?
You can use the thermal liner on the inside of wardrobe to raise the dew point. It's like rolls of polystyrene.
Add vc175 to paint.
Use dehumidifier to dry washing and use vac in bathroom after a shower to suck up water or use some paper towel.
It will always be a problem area. We have a small amount of mould inside our wardrobe at top corner I wash over every month.
Has reduced since we started dealing with the condensation
 
Hello, we have damp in wardrobes (made to look fitted) so clothes are going mouldy, using a dehumidifier as much as possible, the same side of the house but downstairs beneath the bedroom has also been damp including the corner of that room. A start was made on the pointing & guttering checked, the down pipe was checked it was going into the ground, does anyone think it could be cavity insulation required (stupidly didn’t get a damp survey when moved in a year ago), rest of the house/other bedroom on same side of house & back living room seems ok….hope I have explained this well enough & really appreciate any advice please :)
Ventilation is required to prevent the mould spores settling and reduce condensation .
 
Hello & thank you, no back to wardrobe we took off to help airflow, I’ll look into thermal liner, any idea why there’s a problem with the wall downstairs underneath that one do you think cavity insulation would help or resolve? Thanks in advance
 
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Cavity wall insulation helps keep the inside surfaces of walls warmer.

I noticed a terrific improvement in my bathroom, it now needs only a modest extractor fan and is free of condensation.

But fitted wardrobes have poor air circulation and are usually unventilated. They are well known for mould. You'll need to keep the room consistently warm and dry. It is possible to put a low-power heater such as a pipe heater or a very small oil filled radiator or towel rail inside a cupboard. These are two examples that do not get hot enough to start a fire even if something falls on them. Fan and convection heaters are not safe.

Check that the outside wall does not have any problems such as spilling gutters or roofing, or leaking downpipes.

In UK homes the worst cause of condensation and mould is wet washing draped around or hung on radiators, followed by inadequately ventilated bathrooms.

Bedrooms need to be ventilated daily by opening the windows after throwing back the bedding.
 
My opinion is that I think the decision whether or not to have cavity wall insulation depends to a great extent on whether your cavity is designed to be ventilated or not. Have a look outside. If there are airbricks which don't continue to inside, you have a ventilated cavity which is designed to evaporate any condensation inside the wall.

If your house is designed to work that way, then cavity insulation blocks that ventilation. Anecdotally, friends who CWI'd a 1920 house subsequently had damp patches.
 
Anecdotally, friends who CWI'd a 1920 house subsequently had damp patches.
And lots of others didn't

CWI contractors are a lot more careful now to identify building defects causing damp and to insist they are rectified before continuing.

Because they are now exposed to subsequent costs of remediation.
 
And lots of others didn't
I'm sure that's true. I can only speak from experience, but when we decided to internally insulate our 1902 which has a 2" cavity I discussed with my Building Control Officer his thoughts on the risks of interstitial condensation. We were using 60mm PIR backed plasterboard on all (most) external walls (the stairwell could only tolerate 25mm insulation because of the stringer position) Obviously BC don't advise as such, but my BCO was old-school and interested in what I was doing, and we decided together that because the cavity was ventilated, should their be any interstitial condensation, caused by the now-colder wall under the insulation, the well ventilated cavity would dry it out. And so it has proved. We are warm and toasty in a well insulated house, and 5 years on, the ventilated cavity seems to have kept any condensation issues at bay.

That's all anecdotal based on my own personal experience, but I still would treat with some caution any suggestion that it was a good idea to block up the ventilated cavity in a house that was designed with one when it was built. That's not a defect, but changing the way the fabric of the house works with changing levels of temperature and humidity, just like internally insulating it changes the dynamics by moving the dew point inwards.
 

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