Yes that can happen in brick homes, But the dripping roof etc can also be caused as a result of air tightness in the roof space. This happens when a house is reroofed and no air movement. Same solution, put in either a passive vents or external air supply into the eaves. Both of these problems impact the performance of an in-roof ventilation and external air supply will solve it.
mazalinas,
Aug 27, 7:56pm
An extractor fan turned on in the kitchen whilst cooking and for awhile afterwards.
jojo76,
Aug 29, 7:40pm
we have a smartvent, it doesn't work 100%, we have wooden single glazed windows in 1/2 the house the other is retrofitted. 1960's with insulation only in ceiling/underfloor. Even with the smartvent on we still get a bit of moisture on the single glazed, we never get condensation on the double glazed windows. We do live inland Canterbury where -3 or lower frosts are the norm in winter It hasnt been as cheap to run either, roughly 5kw a day. But all in all it does the job, house always smells fresh, never musty.
joanie32,
Aug 29, 8:01pm
If you want ventilation, open a window Basic science agrees with me. Ventilation systems salesmen don’t.
tweake,
Aug 29, 8:20pm
downside to that is when its windy you get to much ventilation and when its not you get to little. relying on weather makes it very hit and miss. under ventilate you can end up with moisture issues, over ventilate and you waste heating which can be expencive.
jojo76,
Aug 29, 9:34pm
If it is bitterly cold outside, opening a window or 2 isn’t an option, like where we live.
gazzat22,
May 13, 9:43pm
Am seriously considering having one installed and am leaning towards Smartvent Would appreciate any advice as to whether these are OK. Dont require any heating just something that will stop windows getting covered in condensation.Any advice appreciated.Thanks
smallwoods,
May 13, 10:01pm
We had a smart vent in one rental and have HRV in ours and another rental. We prefer HRV. All of them, we had installed.
Any system may not be your savior of condensation though, but in our house we had tried everything else before installing the system.
Where is the condensation coming from? Bathroom? Put in an extractor for there, we did this in the rental.
gazzat22,
May 14, 9:40am
We have an extractor fan in the bathroom but I,m fairly sure the condensation in the lounge is from the kitchen as the house is open plan.The bedroom is not so bad, probably just from 2 adults and a dog breathing.We have a wood burner but had a Heat pump installed due to increasing cost of wood. and wood burner is now not used .Its extremely confusing as to which ventilation system to get as they all say theirs is the best etc. When we did use the Wood Burner we had no problem with condensation which I suppose tells you something about the different types of heat. Cheers
molly37,
May 14, 12:25pm
Our tenants, though the house is very sunny, complained of dripping aluminium windows. We put in a smartvent and overnight the condensation was gone. We are well pleased and a good investment. There is an annual cost to replace a filter, which you could possibly do yourself, but we dont live in the same region.
sdm100,
May 14, 6:51pm
Smartvent is as good as any and installed by electricians generally. They might be looking for a bit of work at the moment. Get a couple of quotes maybe for comparison? If you have a smartvent it will help dissipate the heat from your log burner more evenly throughout the home also, so you may find its economical to go back to the wood burner. Also a dry home is much easier to heat with a log burner.
tweake,
May 14, 8:09pm
what sort of house? age? type of construction, single glazing or double?
first thing is to get rid of the sources. that can include moisture coming up through the floor.
all houses need a certain amount of ventilation, but you should not be having excessive ventilation. the more ventilation you pour in the colder the house will get. so by sorting the sources out first you can use less ventilation and that makes for cheaper heating.
smallwoods,
May 15, 8:31am
Read above!
The are a help, not magic.
smallwoods,
May 15, 8:41am
Our wood supply has gone from 4 baskets a night down to one (sometimes 1.5 on really cold nights) and I get my wood for free. When ventilation is working properly, the house is drier, then the air is easier to heat, requiring less wood. Fires have residual heat output (thermal mass storage) but heat pumps are on or off. We have 2 heat pumps, but we installed them for cooling (master bedroom and lounge), not heat. Main fire we use is in the kitchen, for water heating (even run it over christmas for R&V guests) and is positioned near the hallway so heat travels towards the bedrooms. Another in the lounge, which last night would be the 3rd time this year we had it going, only because we had a guest for tea.
When comparing the 2 systems, also look at installed prices. Our HRV was $3600 installed, smart vent (trade price $1500) and installed by our son's friend.
milkath,
May 15, 8:48am
A family member was renting a house with an in roof space system which created some horrible outcomes to the house. When I inspected the roof space I found mold growing on a wet intake air filter.a few weeks later an insulation inspection man was up in the roof space and I told him about what had found. he said he had seen this type of problem,and that now they often don't use roof air in some instalations. In the US the crinkly tubing was banned on these types of installs as condensation pools in low spots, which then can let mold form.
tweake,
May 15, 4:15pm
thats typically brick houses with wooden floor (ie has crawl space under the floor). the ventilation system can suck air from under the house up through the drying channel and into the ceiling and then into the house. need to fit an external air inlet, which frankly is a whole lot cleaner air than the dust in the ceiling.
trade4us2,
May 15, 4:24pm
I put a 75mm pipe through the wall of my bedroom. There's a 12v 2 watt computer fan in the inside and a filter on the outside. It changes the air in the bedroom very well. It cost nothing. There is no condensation in the house.
gazzat22,
May 15, 4:45pm
Single level bungalow,insulated ceiling/ block walls/concrete floor/tile roof/aluminium joinery single Glazed.As an experiment we are going to use the Heat Pump as a Dehumidifier and see how that works and maybe start using the Wood Burner more often plus as the extractor fan in the bathroom isnt vented will sort that out. Will report back . Cheers
tweake,
Oct 3, 4:44pm
heat pump as dehumidifier can operate in two ways. either it cycles from cold to hot, which works well but expensive to run. or it simply cools the house, stops and lets it naturally heat up in the sun before cooling it down again. cheap but may not work well.
you may simply be getting more condensation in the lounge because its the coldest part of the house.
block walls, is that block visible on the inside of the house? ie no insulated wooden wall. one thing you have to watch is block soaking up moisture outside and it drying to the inside of the house.
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