Issues with mould ( 4year old house)

Tillerman08

I have had problems with house built 4 years ago with mould on walls and ceilings in certain rooms. Builder has put fixed vents into walls of affected rooms but still having issues and no improvement. In fairness builder has been helpful and tried what he can.

Builder has asked me to get in touch with"expert" for these issues and having talked to him..... he seems to be pushing for a heat recovery system!

My problem is- I paid to have a house built with the understanding that I would be having none of these issues......... It's a new house!!!!!!!!! I paid an architect to design assuming there would be sufficient ventilation, I paid an engineer to oversee all of the building and I paid the builder to build it.


I feel that this should issue should be sorted for me with no extra cost to me even if a heat recovery system needs to be installed. I am not paying another cent to anyone to get it sorted but I want it sorted now!!!! Would really appreciate your opinion- Thanks

Fiskar

Unfortunately Ireland = wet and damp = high humidity. Air tightness in new houses + high humidity + warm air inside = mould.
Ventilation / reduce humidity is your solution. What is the humidity in the affected rooms?

Tillerman08

Fiskar wrote: »

Unfortunately Ireland = wet and damp = high humidity. Air tightness in new houses + high humidity + warm air inside = mould.
Ventilation / reduce humidity is your solution. What is the humidity in the affected rooms?

I have no idea- I have "expert" coming to assess during week. We have put the vents in but no improvement. Looks like HR system

Miamiheat

Fiskar wrote: »

Unfortunately Ireland = wet and damp = high humidity. Air tightness in new houses + high humidity + warm air inside = mould.
Ventilation / reduce humidity is your solution. What is the humidity in the affected rooms?

Ireland is wet and damp => architects and builders should have that knowledge and it should be standard to design/build based on the conditions of Ireland. Lack of standards in this country is scary. If you have forked all the hard earned money and waited for your home to be built from scratch it is a slap in the face.

Tillerman08

Miamiheat wrote: »

Ireland is wet and damp => architects and builders should have that knowledge and it should be standard to design/build based on the conditions of Ireland. Lack of standards in this country is scary. If you have forked all the hard earned money and waited for your home to be built from scratch it is a slap in the face.

My thoughts exactly! Anyone know where I stand ....... I'm saying the builder/ architect needs to stand the cost of this - not me!!! They each got enough money from me to get it right and they didn't!

Gumbo

Tillerman08 wrote: »

I have had problems with house built 4 years ago with mould on walls and ceilings in certain rooms. Builder has put fixed vents into walls of affected rooms but still having issues and no improvement. In fairness builder has been helpful and tried what he can.

Builder has asked me to get in touch with"expert" for these issues and having talked to him..... he seems to be pushing for a heat recovery system!

My problem is- I paid to have a house built with the understanding that I would be having none of these issues......... It's a new house!!!!!!!!! I paid an architect to design assuming there would be sufficient ventilation, I paid an engineer to oversee all of the building and I paid the builder to build it.


I feel that this should issue should be sorted for me with no extra cost to me even if a heat recovery system needs to be installed. I am not paying another cent to anyone to get it sorted but I want it sorted now!!!! Would really appreciate your opinion- Thanks

Why were the vents only put in after the mound appeared?
How was the house ventilated before the vents (to comply with Part F Ventilation) Building Regulation?

Who specified the construction of the house and who supervised it?

Tillerman08

kceire wrote: »

Why were the vents only put in after the mound appeared?
How was the house ventilated before the vents (to comply with Part F Ventilation) Building Regulation?

Who specified the construction of the house and who supervised it?

Was told that trickle vents in the windows were sufficient for room sizes by architect/ engineer- so no vents were put in by builder just trickle vents in windows. Engineer reckons they comply

Builder has now said rooms need vents because of issues with mould etc. Engineer has reluctantly agreed with him but thinks it may not be the issue. Vents are in now and still having issues.

Metric Tensor

A few questions:

1. If your house was built four years ago it should have had an air tightness test done after construction - what was the resulting number from this test?

2. Do you have extractor fans in all your bathrooms and do you always use them?

3. How many people living in the house and how many showers per day?

4. Where do you dry your clothes after washing them.

5. How often do you open the windows?

6. Where exactly is the mould showing up on the walls and is it only in specific rooms?

MicktheMan

OP, any house, no matter how well built, can and will have damp / mould problems if the right conditions are allowed to persist over time.

The 3 primary factors are moisture load, heating regime and ventilation. If any one or more of these are out of kilter then the risk of problems rises substantially.

Very often, one of the main issues is the ignorance of the residents (I don't mean this in the pejorative sense) in relation to how a house (and especially moisture control) works.

A full investigation will tell you exactly why you have the mould (which factors are at play) and what needs to happen to address. Such investigations do not necessarily cost a lot and the solution may not either.

While you may not wish to spend any more on this issue, you might consider that what you learn from the process might well be beneficial to you for life.

MicktheMan

Tillerman08 wrote: »

1.Was told that trickle vents in the windows were sufficient for room sizes by architect/ engineer- so no vents were put in by builder just trickle vents in windows. Engineer reckons they comply

2.Builder has now said rooms need vents because of issues with mould etc. Engineer has reluctantly agreed with him but thinks it may not be the issue. Vents are in now and still having issues.

1. They may well comply with the b.regs ... doesn't mean they are adequate. There have been several studies / reports over the years showing that the basic b.reg backstop trickle / hole in wall vents don't work.

2. Engineer may be right, in that the issue isn't ventilation but without a proper investigation, you won't know, will you?

Calahonda52

Miamiheat wrote: »

Ireland is wet and damp => architects and builders should have that knowledge and it should be standard to design/build based on the conditions of Ireland. Lack of standards in this country is scary. If you have forked all the hard earned money and waited for your home to be built from scratch it is a slap in the face.

How does this rant help the OP? Not one iota.

OP: you are now over 50 posts it is time to post some pictures and lets get into the detail of the specific issues such as the occupancy behaviour questions as alluded to by Metric and Mick and simple questions like are the windows vents actually open.

just to add to this list

Metric Tensor wrote: »

A few questions:

1. If your house was built four years ago it should have had an air tightness test done after construction - what was the resulting number from this test?

2. Do you have extractor fans in all your bathrooms and do you always use them?

3. How many people living in the house and how many showers per day?

4. Where do you dry your clothes after washing them.

5. How often do you open the windows?

6. Where exactly is the mould showing up on the walls and is it only in specific rooms?

Is there an extractor fan in the kitchen, not a recirculation/carbon filter fan.?
Is it used?

The number of people in the house is important as well because humans produce about 1 litre of moisture per 24 hour period from breathing and normal perspiration.
Finally, was this a self build with direct labour?
Have you certificates of compliance?
The stuff above is important because if there is an abnormal occupancy/behaviour profile in the house, then who ever signed off on the build may be able claim a reasonable defence, just like an insurance claim: how can the insurer walk away is the first question.....

So more detail and less ranting will get more beneficial answers here to help solve the problem.
Keep well and good luck

Gumbo

I hate trickle vents in windows. I often ask for calculations that these supply enough air to adequately estimate the rooms and more times than. It I get a reply of 'we're going to put in permanent background vents instead' as if to say they didn't comply in the first place.

sydthebeat

Fiskar wrote: »

Air tightness in new houses + high humidity + warm air inside = mould.

Well that's just a completely ignorant comment of how mould comes about and just seems to a explicit dig at air tightness. Air tightness is the removal of unwanted leaky drafts from houses.

Mould forms in areas where water vapor condenses frequently. Vapour condenses when warm air meets a surface cold enough to turn the vapour to moisture.

The answer is holistic and not as base as above. For example, if there are no cold surfaces, vapour doesn't condense.

So the answer is myriad.
Reduce the warm humid air by adequate ventilation, both rapid and background.
Build the building so that thermal bridges are reduced to a minimum therefore no cold surfaces to condense on.

Also, someone said above that our building standards in this country are poor. Actually that's very far from the truth. Our standards are actually very high level, we've over 1500 pages of domestic building regulations.

The problem is we have incredibly ineffective over sight of these regulations, especially at a domestic level.

Fiskar

sydthebeat wrote: »

Well that's just a completely ignorant comment of how mould comes about and just seems to a explicit dig at air tightness. Air tightness is the removal of unwanted leaky drafts from houses.

Mould forms in areas where water vapor condenses frequently. Vapour condenses when warm air meets a surface cold enough to turn the vapour to moisture.
.

Air tightness in new builds does not provide for ventilation. That is my point. How air tight does a house really need to be in a wet and damp country.

BryanF

Fiskar wrote: »

Air tightness in new builds does not provide for ventilation. That is my point. How air tight does a house really need to be in a wet and damp country.

False.
An air Leaky home = heat loss. You can have lots of insulation to keep out the 'wet and damp' but with out air-tightness, your letting the heat Escape.

Air-tightness can be measured as: Air Changes P/Hour (ACH)
So an air-leaky house might be 7ACH and a MVHR suitable house 1ACH

Suitable Ventilation is required whether you have 1 or 7ACH

There are several important questions asked above that the OP Needs to answer, before the source or solution can be discussed.

sydthebeat

Fiskar wrote: »

Air tightness in new builds does not provide for ventilation. That is my point. How air tight does a house really need to be in a wet and damp country.

air tightness does provide for ventilation

there is a direct link between your air tightness result and the amount of ventilation you must provide to be building regulation compliant.

air tightness has NOTHING at all to do with a wet and damp climate. It is just as important a building metric as it would be in a tropical, arctic or equatorial climate.

as i said above, its there to reduce 'undesigned' drafts in a build.
There is a vital basic need to designed ventilation to be provided.
The problem is that 'most' builders and a lot of architects / engineers do not understand what is required to comply.......and local authority over sight is non-existent in the vast majority of the country.