A Question Of Ventilation?

Stigura

Boards DIY Massive, lend me ye ears, please .....

Stigura has two rooms. One is his 13' x 8' 'Work Room'. It has a cleaned and boarded up fire place. 8" ventilation grill in the board. There's also a couple of 8" x 8" grills above the window. They, effectively, vent into what ever's up there. Old thatch, under tin.

I look upon that room and see that it is good.

Then, I have 'The Big Room'. It's actually two rooms. But, the door between them is never closed. Small section is 10' x 8'. It has a cleaned and boarded up fire place. 8" ventilation grill in the board. (Stigura is nothing, if not consistent)

The adjoining space is 14' x 11'. That's it. No fire places. No grills. Not really much of anything, quite honestly. Just a load of empty canary cages from a time gone by.

And, those cages have a light frosting of white, wipe offable with ones finger, mould on them. As does the ferret box and wooden book shelf, in the smaller room. Anything, wooden, I put in there gets this f***ing mould!

Great Minds Of The Massive: Would punching a couple of 8" holes through the door to this 'room' alleviate this schit? I'm thinking along the lines of simply allowing the air to move, in there. That one vent probably isn't cutting it. Yeah?

Thanks

Steve

Look for the moisture source first. Mostly it's from inhabitants in an un-ventilated room (i.e. humans) but in an unused room it has to be from another source.

Ventilation will help but it's not the root cause.

Stigura

Hmm. Thanks, Steve.

It's a weird one, alright. Only inhabitant in all that space is a goldfinch! Hardly breathing up a storm then.

I would just point out that the small room was earth floored. The old boards having long since rotted away. I had that given a proper, concrete floor (With dpc, obviously) a couple of years ago.

The big room? That used to be a small barn. Then, they dumped a ridiculously deep load of concrete on the floor and made it a room.

That (small) fireplace / chimney is the only source of fresh air in there. Windows are always shut, for basic security. Even the bloody ply wood blocking off the fire place has the white, fluffy mould on it!

I'm wondering if two, eight inch, air vents through the door might help? My logic dictates that the air's just not moving in there. It's not so much Breathing as holding its breath

Steve

Vents can't harm.

Bear in mind, it sounds like an old building - maybe pre DPC built into the walls. In those days damp in the walls drained into the ventilated space under the floorboards so filling that with concrete &DPM may have seemed a good idea at the time but also may have made it worse.

What you are describing is exactly what happened when my dad bought a shop in an old building with an earth floor in the late '70's. poured a concrete floor and ended up with mold everywhere.

Stigura

Steve wrote: »

What you are describing is exactly what happened when my dad bought a shop in an old building with an earth floor in the late '70's. poured a concrete floor and ended up with mold everywhere.

Ohhhh Sh!t!!! :eek: Know what? Now ye mention it, looking back? Yes. The place was a mess. Smelt of loam. Random gear dumped in there, willy nilly. But, no: No 'Damp'! I distinctly remember a sweat shirt. Laying around in the pile for years. Never rotted though.

This is a family farm cottage, by the way. Stone built. Century plus old. Mad thing is; I've never had a problem with damp (mould) anywhere here before.

Hmm. I'm thinking of putting two, 8" vents in the top of the door. Now wondering about two in the bottom too? I have this vague notion that air moves better when it's high and low?

Maybe ~ now that I've fixed my pine marten problem ~ I could even reopen that chimney? Let the air pour in.

Jesus. Houston ....?