vin et fromage

Thanks Chancer, I think you are probably right with the conduit in the loft, its that cold up there I saw a brass monkey looking for a welder last week. (Sorry northern joke). The air in the  house felt fresher when we first used it in Sept (after we had installed it) but the huge collection of water in the pipes and having it seep back through the ceiling vents worried us. So I think the next step is to insulate the pipes, seen them in the bricos but they are not cheap. Or we may well wrap insulation round them and secure with string or some such thing. We love where we live but having to wipe black the stuff off walls every couple of weeks every  year is getting to be a pain. Still we are luckier than some we live in France so I suppose if this is all we have to complain about. Did putting the polystyrene on the outside improve the warmth of your outside walls (inside hte house) if you get my drift. MOH is thinking about building some false walls using the metal studding and polystyrene backed plaster board to improve the outside walls, starting in the master bedroom which is where the main problem seems to be. (We shall have to stop breathing at night I  think). We also noted that around the windows (installed 6 years ago) they didn't fill the cavities between the frame and the brick work, they just put PVC  coving over it to make the finished job look OK. We note in our bedroom that around the window and on the wall gets particularly wet and damp. So before putting up the false wall, we shall fill the gaps with that expanding foam which should help.

Thanks Pip24.  We emptied the conduit pipes 2 days ago and got 3/4 mop bucket of water. Its been really cold and freezing outside here in 79 the last few days so I guess its condensation building up in the loft pipes.  This morning a small puddle of water on tiles in hall and drips of water coming from air vent which goes into the loft.  We have turned the electrics off to the machine at the moment until such times as moh can comfortably go up in the loft and lag the conduit.  I thought it may have been water getting into pipers via the roof outlet, but it hasn't rained since the last time we drained the pipes so I guess insulating them may improve things.  We went to the expense of installing one because all things pointed to the fact that it would help, but we have now got another problem to solve. MOH is also going to build some walls using the metal framework and studding with polystyrene backed plaster board to improve the warm air hitting the colder outside walls, which causes the black spores to appear. I have had a dreadful cough for the last 8 years, every winter and the thinking by my doctor is that the condensation on the walls is not helping with this.  So we shall have to see what happens. Thanks for your contribution.

Thank you everyone, there is no leaking roof, have put air bricks in all rooms, have 2 extractors in the kitchen one over hob one on wall. In a previous life moh was a heating and ventilation engineer ( qualified) and he is baffled by the ount of water in the outlet hoses. We had some come to estimate the cost of putting polystyrene walls up on the outside of the house, which is a fairly new technique they then apply a blown crepe onto that. But the cost was far too prohibited 32k to encase a our small soys sol. The outside mortar is blown but can't be replaced because its breeze block and Salamanca construction, hence the polystyrene possibility. The air fliw in the house is good, but two main problem areas main bedroom and to some degree kitchen. The reason I adked the question was go see if anyone had fitted a VMC and had a similar problem or knew of someone who had. I am thinking it could be condensate in the loft pipes and will def look at insulating them. When we first came here 13 years ago we haf old ill fitting windows and some loft insulation. We now have double glazed windows and good loft insulation but we seem to have made the problems worse. Our spare bed room doesn't suffer to bad unless someone is usk g it full time, as our son did a few years back. Thanks anyways for all the replies.7

Hi I am new to the forum and hope someone can throw some light on a problem we are having with a newly installed VMC unit. Moh installed a brand new unit in the loft which we purchased from Leyroy Merlan recently. We watched the video and read the instructions back to back several times. However the plastic tubes which go from the ceiling outlets into the unit are filling with water( quite a lot of water) so we have had to turn it off. There is a correct chimney outlet pipe fitted on the roof ( which in itself cost over 50 euro), We purchased it because of the problems we have with condensation and the cost of getting a trades person in( over 1800euro) moh is usually OK with most things he takes on despite being g 71. However this is baffling us as to why so much water is sitting in what should be extraction pipies for the air from our rooms. Possibilities 1. Water getting in the roof vent and going back through the machine into the pipes 2. Condensation ( loft space is very very cold area) sitting and amassing in pipes. I noted in some brico shops insulated sleeves for the pipes which left me thinking it must be a problem. So anyone got any ideas or had a similar problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated. OH not looking forwards to roof climbing at 71. VMC being an air filtrstion system which changes the air on your rooms and is suppose to help extract the moist air that contributes to condensation.