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Ventilation in a summer room

Silverpaolo

Silverpaolo

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Joined
Sep 17, 2020
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2,654
Location
Burnley
Building a summer house outside to hold pins , it will have a bifold with no trickle vents due to door height limits and no windows. I want to be sure I don’t get mould and condensation problems for obvious reasons can anyone recommend a solution ?

Thanks in advance Paul
 
What is the build up of rhe walls?
You can have:
1. Opening flat rooflights
2. Mechanical vents, similar to the ones in bathrooms conected to the lights.
3. Airbricks
 
Sertx said:
What is the build up of rhe walls?
You can have:
1. Opening flat rooflights
2. Mechanical vents, similar to the ones in bathrooms conected to the lights.
3. Airbricks
Click to expand...
It’s osb board and 4 x 2 timber frame with flat roof
 
Air movement stops mould, my garage which is huge has humidity in the 90’s often due to the weather here but has never got mould and I’ve been here nearly 25 years.
Just natural air movement as not sealed up, my pin room that’s in the garage is sealed and just use a dehumidifier that is cheap to run.

Split unit a/c units (blower inside/condenser outside) are good and give cheap heating as well as cooling and dehumidification in one unit.
Roughly 4kw of heat output will cost you 1kw on a split unit, virtually same for cooling as just reverses.

If it’s just to hold pins and not play I would seal it up and put a dehumidifier in there to make sure and drain out somewhere, otherwise a split unit is ideal to cover everything.
 
Been looking at similar myself, took a visit to green retreats and quoted £36K for 6M x 3.5M (internal floor space) fully insulated to house spec including base, large bifold doors, composite cladding and split aircon, so basically fully loaded. Expensive but build quality was really nice compared to others ive looked at. Some of that price is probably due to their advertising budget!

This may be another option worth looking at:
 
Mould needs moisture, so although air flow will help, get a good dehumidifier, that will take any moisture out and also throw out a bit of heat.
 
A dehumidifier is your friend here. Low cost.

Addresses the problem- moisture - and the by product is heat
 
DRD said:
A dehumidifier is your friend here. Low cost.

Addresses the problem- moisture - and the by product is heat
Click to expand...
26093D6C-B228-4180-B31F-16E2077C37F0.png

So when you say dehumidifier your saying something like this just hooked up in the room running constantly taking moisture out of the air ?
 
Yes. They remove water from the air. The electricity they consume ends up as heat inside the room, so you get a double whammy ...

Heat
Less moisture

They tend to fill up with water in about 24 hours then shut down until you remove and empty the onboard tank. Consider one with an external drain pipe so you can either run the water outside or into a larger container inside your shed. These are about 1cm diameter

This is a much cheaper solution than a proper split aircon unit.

Simple air vents are a double edged sword in my experience. Condensation is a winter problem and in winter the outside air is moist anyway - and letting in cold air makes the room cooler so effectively worsens condensation.

Our washing machine/ utility room is adjacent to our unheated downstairs toilet. In winter the toilet would have condensation on it.

I tried running a dehumidifier in the utility room and it was so effective that not only did it stop the condensation on the toilet, we could also air dry clothes in the utility room - so I installed 4x wall racks. So rather than using a tumble dryer in winter, we rely on the dehumidifier

1695991680489117721684635270320.jpg
 
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Great advice a dehumidifier would allow my house to be sealed whilst being moisture free , which dehumidifier do you have
 
Just get a cheap one for your summerhouse that can drain so it doesn’t cut out and stop until you empty the tank, works best when room has no ventilation.
The one in my room (11 pins long) is cheap and does the job well and it’s been going 15 years somehow!
My others are the real deal and not so quiet but will suck the blood from your veins😂 Very good for drying houses.
 

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paulg100 said:
Any idea what one of these costs to run on a monthly basis?
Click to expand...

It depends on the room really, most you can set to achieve a set humidity level, once that's reached they stop and will resume every hour or so for a couple of mins to sample the air, and only power back on fully if needed.

I worked out mine costs roughly £40 per month at 10/20p per KWh throughout the winter, however my garage isn't very airtight so I would take that as a worst case scenario, having said that it makes the room comfortable in all but the coldest months, looks after the pins, games and car, so its definitely worth the cost.
 
I have used Meaco ones for 6 years, four of them. One is in a drying room and is on permanently but you set what you want and it will stop when it reaches the humidity and then check regularly if it needs to start up again.
We seem to do clothes washing daily, so it gets good use. I can’t isolate its cost from a few other things on that circuit but it is only £24 a month so less than that.

These have a 20l tank.
Meaco Low Energy Dehumidifier With Air Purifier And Hepa Filter For Damp Condensation and Mould Removal Exclusive 3 Year Warranty Control Of Humidity Indoor Laundry Drying Free Led Keyring (20 Litre) https://amzn.eu/d/8VWhm7A
 
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Just had to add a 3rd Meaco as we're starting to get mould downstairs now. Getting on for £800 worth of dehumidifiers at this stage. Going to buy an industrial one if this doesn't solve the problem.
 
Do you have humidity monitors to see what is happening in the house? The humidifier extract it from the air and then the wall and floor will then give up theirs back into the air. Took three years to balance our house but it had roof leaks and rotten windows to start with.
 
I have a Meaco Dessicant in the conservatory plus a monitor to keep that at around 55. I have a Meaco Platinum upstairs in the clothes drying room but that gets switched off at night due to the noise. So we have at least 12hrs per day where there is no dehumidifier running in the main house. So I've added another Meaco desiccant Zambezi to the dining room which can run 24hr when it's cold.
But basically we've been seeing mould forming on the bottom of furniture on the ground floor and also on coats that hang on an external wall.
 
you don’t mention insulation Paul , inthe walls build , this is key in stopping condensation and then as others mentioned a dehumidifier as the space won’t have consistent heat.
 
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