In a home, damp can evidence itself in various ways. For example, you might have spotted wallpaper peeling or plaster flaking in certain parts of your property, or wet or damp patches could simply have emerged on your walls.
Whatever warning signs you do notice, you need to act on the issue of damp quickly, lest the issue potentially worsen. Here are some steps you could take…
Use a dehumidifier
A dehumidifier’s purpose is largely self-explanatory, as this wondrous little machine works by removing humidity from the air.
Many activities undertaken indoors – like showering and cooking, as well as drying clothes on radiators – can moisten the air and so lead to damp. Hence, it could be useful for you to switch a dehumidifier on after activities like these.
Inspect your gutters
One kind of damp is penetrating damp, which results from water leaking through walls. Though one culprit for penetrating damp can be a crack in an external wall, one reason for rainwater to reach this crack in the first place could be faulty guttering.
So, by simply fixing cracked guttering attached to your home, you could end up solving a lot of the problem.
Replace your loft’s standard boarding
If you have recently had your loft boarded, perhaps as part of a loft conversion project, your choice of loft boarding could be to blame for damp.
That’s because standard boarding can too easily end up squashing loft insulation and lead it to collect moisture that would itself cause damp. Fortunately, Instaloft provides a great loft boarding service that gives loft insulation enough room to breathe.
Coat old bricks with damp-proof paint
A period property can be particularly prone to damp due to old bricks becoming porous, meaning that water can more easily get through.
Though replacing these bricks would be an obvious move, the consumer watchdog organisation Which? advises that you first try “painting the bricks with an exterior silicone water-repellent fluid or limewash” in order to re-seal the walls.
Keep your home steadily warm
Ideal Home advocaes doing this during the colder months, as damp occurs “when warm air hits cold walls, so by keeping your house warm, the surfaces don’t get cold enough to create condensation.”
To help keep your residential property’s temperature reasonably warm, you could set timers that would determine intervals at which your heating turns on throughout the day.
Be wary of free damp surveys
Keep in mind that, in many instances, a building company could offer a free damp survey in the hope that you take it up and they then get the opportunity to recommend treatment your home doesn’t really need. An independent damp specialist won’t have this same vested interest.
Keep your home ventilated
Doing this could be as simple as leaving a window of your residence open for at least 15 minutes each morning. If a specific room seems especially vulnerable to condensation issues, you could have ‘air bricks’ fitted to exterior walls, allowing air to enter the room from outside more easily.
