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Mould on furniture


belu
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We had a new tiled floor laid throughout in our holiday home in March this year - the heating was left on until May so that it could dry out.  We furnished the house in June and have visited 3 times since.  However, on each occasion, all the soft furnishings: chairs, sofa, curtains, cushions etc. are covered in a white mould and the fabrics feel damp to the touch.  The mould brushes off fairly easily and once the doors/windows have been left open for a while, the dampness disappears on the fabrics.  Because the house is quite new it is very well insulated and we are unable to leave the windows on "vent lock" as in the UK.  However, we do have 3 electric air vents.

Has anyone else had this problem and found a solution?  Obviously the summer is now behind us and the weather will become damper and colder again - I am now envisaging several more months of this and our furniture will eventually be ruined.  We only visit every six weeks or so and although we do have neighbours who could "open the house up" for us, it is not reasonable to expect them to sit around for a couple of hours a day while the house "airs"!!  I do intend to leave the heating on low over the winter but this doesn't seem to help.

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We live near the coast in the South West and it is very humid here, particularly in the winter.  When our house was only used as a residence secondaire (we now live here), damp and mould were a problem.  Dust sheets were essential when you closed the house down.  Heating is not the answer.  Ventilation is.  You need to work out a way of improving the ventilation.  Ours is an old house and so we have high ceilings, chimneys (don't block them up) and lots of interconnecting doors (which we kept open upon leaving).

By the way, do not leave any clothes in the house over the winter.  It is a nuisance but they will go mouldy.  Beds need to be stripped and covered with dust sheets.  The best place to keep linen is in blanket boxes.

The solution for us was to pay neighbours to come in to air the place regularly.

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I agree with Cathy - try to keep some sort of air movement in the house. Move furniture away from outside walls as this prevente air moving behind.

The de-humidifier suggestion is also a good one. You could put it on a timer if you didn't want it on all the time. If you are on the heures creuses system (like economy 7) you could run it overnight on the cheap electricity.
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If its a new house; you should have a VMC fitted, this should either be a "running all the time" model, or a model that switches itself on and off, if the humidity reaches a certain level. That said, the cheapest solution for property without a VMC is to introduce some ventilation, this can be as simple as installing airvents in window frames, or a hole in the wall (or two) with vent covers. Failing any of the above, get yourself a dehumidifier, and leave it on the draining board, and remove the little plug sometimes found at the back, and this will allow the water to drain into the sink, rather than filling the water recepticle, and needing human intervention to empty it.

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We had the same problem and cured it by using those dehumidifiers that you can buy that are bags of crystals[8-)], take off the outer covering, stand it on a tray in the box supplied and over the next couple of months the crystals dissolve drawing water from the air to the bottom of the box. Like you, I go over every 6 -9weeks or so, and all I do is take the boxes out, empty the liquid, and put a refill in. If your problem is particularly bad you could put one in every room, but I just have one in a couple of the bedrooms, and one in the kitchen and sitting room, incidentally, I leave clothes there all year round, and leave my bed made up, since I've been using these I don't have a problem ( everywhere used to be green before!)[+o(] Just be careful when you empty the liquid as it can stain, not sure what the crystals are! The benefit is you don't have to have any electrical things running when you are not there, and they are relatively cheap, initial cost about 10 euros each, then just buy the refills.[:)]

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[quote user="Jo"]We had the same problem and cured it by using those dehumidifiers that you can buy that are bags of crystals[8-)], take off the outer covering, stand it on a tray in the box supplied and over the next couple of months the crystals dissolve drawing water from the air to the bottom of the box. Just be careful when you empty the liquid as it can stain, not sure what the crystals are! The benefit is you don't have to have any electrical things running when you are not there, and they are relatively cheap, initial cost about 10 euros each, then just buy the refills.[:)]
[/quote]

The crystals are just salt, very expensive salt mark you but nowt else.

My mother used to leave bowls of salt in our caravan over winter, she learnt from my grandfather who used to build them after WW2.

You must be carefull to only partially fill whatever receptacle you use as the salt attracts many times its own volume of water and can easily overflow and stain things, I reckon no more than one fifth full but that is only my recollection as a small boy.

I find that nothing beats a forced ventilation (VMC), for this to work properly you must also have adequate air entry vents which is usually done at the same time. If you have good ventilation then either a dehumidifier, wonder crystal thingy or salt bowl is simply going to absorb the ambient humidity from the atmosphere.

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If you have shutters on the upstairs windows, do as the french do and leave the actual windows open a touch behind the shutters making sure they cannot slam too and shut up again. Leave all doors open in the house as well so the air can circulate. An upstairs front facing window would be far safer to open up than a downstairs or back of house one.  Salt in a container over a bucket to collect moisture is very good and cheaper than fancy chemical blocks and safer than leaving the electricity running as in a power cut the electric dehumidifier could be damaged or go awry.
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The home made version looks really easy to do and a good idea for any house/ cupboards thats shut up for a while and certainly could be used as back up all over the house but would they really cope with a serious damp problem, If someone has used them successfully I would love to know as it could save a lot of money buying a dehumiddifier[:D]
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Thanks Danny - this is a great explination.  A couple of further questions - what type of salt is best to use, and what is the material put over the bottle top to keep the salt in but allow the water to drain thought?

Lastly, why do you put the oil on the cotton wool in the lower container as isn't hsi where the water collects?

Many thanks

Paul.  

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Jane & Danny.  Thanks for the link.  Like other posters, I'm a little confused.  These home made containers look great and I want to have a go at making one (or two).  Does the salt go in the upper part and the cotton wool in the lower one? How long is it before they fill up?  Are they any good if you are away or are they for when you are living in the house?
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