Water on pipes in hot press

LeahH

So for the last 3 days the cold water pipes in my hot press have been soaking wet and freezing cold. They are that wet that it is dripping onto the floor and completely soaking a a towel in a few hours. I assumed there was a leak somewhere and had a plumber out today.
He said there is no leak and that it is condensation on the pipes due to bad ventaltion. His advice was to leave the door open and he dryer off all the pipes, said it wouldn't happen again once ventilated. This evening pipes again soaking and towel half soaked through.
I have lived here for 12 years and never had a problem before.
Anyone any thoughts or advice?

Dardania

LeahH wrote: »

So for the last 3 days the cold water pipes in my hot press have been soaking wet and freezing cold. They are that wet that it is dripping onto the floor and completely soaking a a towel in a few hours. I assumed there was a leak somewhere and had a plumber out today.
He said there is no leak and that it is condensation on the pipes due to bad ventaltion. His advice was to leave the door open and he dryer off all the pipes, said it wouldn't happen again once ventilated. This evening pipes again soaking and towel half soaked through.
I have lived here for 12 years and never had a problem before.
Anyone any thoughts or advice?

Has anything else changed in the house - have you blocked vents or keeping the house colder? Any unexplained leaks in the attic?

That qty of water sounds excessive.

LeahH

Dardania wrote: »

Has anything else changed in the house - have you blocked vents or keeping the house colder? Any unexplained leaks in the attic?

That qty of water sounds excessive.

I change to anything that's why we suspected a leak, it's an apartment.

10-10-20

Just to cover off what might or might not be obvious: The cold water pipes are obviously colder at this time of year than they would be, than lets say around mid-summer. Hence, if you're drawing water into the attic tank, then the pipes will be constantly cold and water will condense.

Therefore, if you had a leak in a cistern, or a dripping tap or a higher draw of bathroom water, then the pipes would remain colder for longer and you could expect excessive condensation on these cold surfaces.
Additionally, if you are cooking and don't have an externally vented extractor fan (as opposed to a filter/recycling type), then your relative humidity would increase and add to the situation, etc.

In my case, I have a teenager who has recently started taking longer showers, meaning that the draw is higher on the cold-tank AND the humidity is higher in the upstairs area. Hence we get humidity on anything less than the dew-point (~13 degrees C at 20 degrees ambient & 66% RH.)
http://www.dpcalc.org/

Perhaps this helps.

LeahH

We had a issue with the toilet taking a long time to fill but to be honest it has been like that for months and hasn't caused any issue. Anyway that has been fixed today and we still seem to have the issue.
We really haven't done anything differently that's what's so hard to understand.
Guess I'll just have get him out again

10-10-20

Option #2 is to just properly insulate the cold pipes, btw.
https://www.woodies.ie/economiser-pipe-insulation-365957