It's Condensation Season!

The phone is running off the hook with calls about condensation.  

If you need help with a 'damp' problem and want advice, you can arrange a 1 hour telephone consulatation with us, costing £250, which we do on mondays. We'll need photos of your problem, with relative humidity readings, and pictures of the house and surrounds.  Email us the information, and we will book a time slot to discuss. Please don't just ask for advice - we are swamped with requests for help as it is! If your problem is more substantial, we may need to do a full building 'damp' survey - costs typically are around £1200 plus travel and vat.

First, you need one of these.  It's called a thermo hygrometer, and it measures Relative Humidity:

Now we'll explain why... 

If the relative humidity (RH) is high in your house, you will get condensation occurring both within the brickwork, and on surfaces.  Before you call Wally Damp Man, or ring your local PCA or Property Care Association 'surveyor' to flog you some damp treatment, let's get technical and collect some proper data.  If the humidity in your house is around 50 to 55% at normal room temperatures, you ain't going to get dampness.  If it's over 60%, you got problems.  At 75%, you will be seeing damp patches in cold weather.  Before you rush for snake oil treatments, LOOK FOR THE SOURCE!  Mostly it will moisture from cooking or bathrooms.  Next, from cellars that aren't well vented. Then, from walls that are solid - stone, brick, whatever - with gypsum on the inside and cement on the outside.  Moisture gets trapped in the pore spacing of the brick or stone - which encourages humidity in your house.  So - before you ring us - help yourself - get one of these gizmos, and put it in different rooms of your house for an hour or two. Figure out which rooms are more humid than others, and the temperatures, THEN call us with cold hard information.  DON'T call the damp wally - we know the damp fraudsters have cottoned onto the fact that they can buy cheap ventilation fans from China for a fiver, and sell them to you for £500 installed. They are useless.  If you are going to get a condensation control fan, you need to have a proper, scientific fan - good quality, designed for the job, that is controlled by humidity.  Wally damp man will flog you one - but his humidity controller is cheap rubbish that won't be constantly sampling the air both inside and outside the house, and working out where best to find dry air for your house.  Have a look at the RHL direct equipment on some of these pages - it's professionally built and manufactured in this country - not in some sweat shop in China.

If all this sounds confusing - dont worry - it isn't - we'll put up another page that tells you more - but get the meter and start taking readings and understanding the humidity in your home.   See What actually is Rising Damp?