Condensation.

DorsetDude said:
How does it work if its blowing air INTO the property? Seems odd to me.
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and by doing so, increasing ventilation, which is apparently the way to go. I've looked into this quite a lot now and it seems ventilation is everything, clean, fresh air from outside into the property, replacing the air inside constantly. I tried keeping the windows open as much as possible (that can't be done 100% of the time for obvious reasons) but open windows made little difference. This unit is on 100% of the time and air circulates from otuside around the house, finding it's way out through window vents, door surrounds etc.

At least that's the theory, early days yet, so we'll see.
 
mark richards said:
but its not blowing air in from outside, its blowing air in from loft? I thought that these would go outside, like fan vents?
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Nope, the soffits are vented, so therefore air is constantly taken from outside, via the loft space. I suppose for the first few minutes after start up, it would be the loft air that was present at the time but that would be replaced by fresh air from outside almost immediately.
 
Thanks for posting an update on the installation and use of this device, Dale. Hope you can post another update in a few months time after you have had it running for a while.

Cheers

Dave
 
Well, that's 2 proper cold nights (Tuesday and Wednesday), both below zero and typical nights that we would get condensation on the windows at least, but I'm happy to say, not a drop on either night. It's early days yet and it might just be coincidence but if that continues, then it's been a worthwhile investment.
 
Bit of an update and a little dissapointment but also, trying to be realistic.

We had some condensation on a few of the windows this morning, our room, which has always been the worst, some on the kitchen and also the bathroom. In fairness, it was -6 last night and that was 11pm and it's always been at its worst on very cold nights. Also, I'd used the pressure cooker last evening and letting the steam of that without putting on the cooker extractor probably hasn't helped, maybe a bit of a condensation perfect storm last night. Also, I'm sure it would've been much worse without the PIV unit and it's still early days as it is an ongoing process which could take a couple of months to balance out. I'm still positive though, it is still an improvement.
 
Dale. said:
Bit of an update and a little dissapointment but also, trying to be realistic.

We had some condensation on a few of the windows this morning, our room, which has always been the worst, some on the kitchen and also the bathroom. In fairness, it was -6 last night and that was 11pm and it's always been at its worst on very cold nights. Also, I'd used the pressure cooker last evening and letting the steam of that without putting on the cooker extractor probably hasn't helped, maybe a bit of a condensation perfect storm last night. Also, I'm sure it would've been much worse without the PIV unit and it's still early days as it is an ongoing process which could take a couple of months to balance out. I'm still positive though, it is still an improvement.
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I would assume that it was as you say, a perfect storm.
Minus 6 outside, maybe plus 16 - 18 inside is a big difference, and a lot of warm and wet air from the pressure cooker and however many sleep in your house...What setting was the unit set to - ramping it up a notch or two might have made a difference, but given the pretty extreme conditions I'd not be too concerned Dale.
Again, thanks for keeping this updated - its very informative for me.
 
I found it took a while to fully sort itself out. We don’t get any condensation unless it is really cold (colder than the last few nights) and only then in the bottom corner of certain windows. Even then it is a slight misting.
As mentioned it might be worth turning the fan speed up one notch.
 
stevewestern said:
I would assume that it was as you say, a perfect storm.
Minus 6 outside, maybe plus 16 - 18 inside is a big difference, and a lot of warm and wet air from the pressure cooker and however many sleep in your house...What setting was the unit set to - ramping it up a notch or two might have made a difference, but given the pretty extreme conditions I'd not be too concerned Dale.
Again, thanks for keeping this updated - its very informative for me.
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Craig1912 said:
I found it took a while to fully sort itself out. We don’t get any condensation unless it is really cold (colder than the last few nights) and only then in the bottom corner of certain windows. Even then it is a slight misting.
As mentioned it might be worth turning the fan speed up one notch.
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Very much so on these comments. I think a perfect storm for sure. The thermostat was saying 19 degrees when we went to bed too and -6 outside. I'm guessing that dropped to -8 or so overnight. Even on the school walk this morning at 08-30, it was -5. There are 3 of us living here, as well as 3 large dogs and 2 cats, so plenty of warm and moist breath flying about too. I've had the unit set at 4 of 6, but turned it down to 3 last weekend, as upto then, we'd had no condensation at all. I found on 4 and even on 3, the hallway is significantly cooler than the rest of the house, which is one reason I turned the unit down to 3. Even on 3, it's a significant draught, which of course, is the intention. Our thermostat is in the hallway, so it's getting a little confused by the cooler hallway but the other rooms are toasty now. Our bedroom was always cold before I fitted the unit, now it's a good 2 or 3 degrees warmer.

I'm still very confident this unit is the way forward, I just think with the conditions last night and trying to catch up on years of condensation conditions too, it's not suprising there was some condensation this morning.
 
Thanks for the information on this, we've been considering getting one for a little while. Maybe a silly question but the main problem we have with condensation is in the kids bedrooms, they generally sleep with their bedroom doors shut, would this stop the unit being effective overnight or does it still work with doors shut?
 
SteveSc said:
Thanks for the information on this, we've been considering getting one for a little while. Maybe a silly question but the main problem we have with condensation is in the kids bedrooms, they generally sleep with their bedroom doors shut, would this stop the unit being effective overnight or does it still work with doors shut?
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I think on the Nuaire website it says something like if there's a gap at the bottom of the doors, like carpet clearance, that's enough but it does also say leaving doors ajar, especially when out, will help, although I don't think that's hugely neccesary. Our Daughter sleeps with her door closed all night as I'm not keen on cats in bedrooms. Yet to have condenstation in her room since installing the unit.
 
Any (correctly fitted) door has an air gap at the bottom to allow sufficient air movement but yes, the bigger the gap, or opening the better..
Also as you say Dale, your house will need to dry out a fair bit, so it may take a while before things settle - either way, it all sounds like money well spent !
 
Dale. said:
I think on the Nuaire website it says something like if there's a gap at the bottom of the doors, like carpet clearance, that's enough but it does also say leaving doors ajar, especially when out, will help, although I don't think that's hugely neccesary. Our Daughter sleeps with her door closed all night as I'm not keen on cats in bedrooms. Yet to have condenstation in her room since installing the unit.
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Thanks, that's helpful to know.
 
Thanks for these updates, Dale - very useful.

Dave
 
Finally got our one fitted last week, obviously no problem at the moment with the warm weather but keeping my fingers crossed for when it gets colder. Very easy to install & while I was at it I fitted a much higher flow rate extraction fan for our shower room & added 100mm of insulation to the loft space so hopefully all that will help. The unit will only cut in when the loft temp is below 20oc I believe. I bought the version with the heater & you can set the temp that starts to work as well so it’s not constantly running & with the remote control it can be turned off if you wish.
 
Have you got any windows open when you run it?
The issue with modern houses is that they are too well sealed. For condensation you need two things. a large enough temperature difference and humidity, take either one of those away and you wont have condensation.

The temperature difference you can't do much about in winter unless you don't mind layering up and shivering.

So that leaves humidity. Dehumidifiers will work in a sealed environments and take the moisture out of the air, or the other option is to eject the humid air from the building and replace with less humid air. This used to be easily solved with air bricks, but the need to reduce energy consumption has seen these fall out of fashion. The device you have installed is a much more elaborate version of an air brick, bringing less humid air in from the outside and pumping it into the house. But if you don't have any way for the humid air to get out then you are not replacing the humid air, but just lowering the humidity and pressurising the house. You may find that at some times this lowered humidity is not quite low enough to avoid condensation. Try opening a window vent, ideally as far away from the intake as possible to maximise air flow through the house.

It is a similar concept to cooling a PC case, pumping cool air in is not very effective unless you can get the hot air out.
 
bass_junkie83 said:
Have you got any windows open when you run it?
The issue with modern houses is that they are too well sealed. For condensation you need two things. a large enough temperature difference and humidity, take either one of those away and you wont have condensation.

The temperature difference you can't do much about in winter unless you don't mind layering up and shivering.

So that leaves humidity. Dehumidifiers will work in a sealed environments and take the moisture out of the air, or the other option is to eject the humid air from the building and replace with less humid air. This used to be easily solved with air bricks, but the need to reduce energy consumption has seen these fall out of fashion. The device you have installed is a much more elaborate version of an air brick, bringing less humid air in from the outside and pumping it into the house. But if you don't have any way for the humid air to get out then you are not replacing the humid air, but just lowering the humidity and pressurising the house. You may find that at some times this lowered humidity is not quite low enough to avoid condensation. Try opening a window vent, ideally as far away from the intake as possible to maximise air flow through the house.

It is a similar concept to cooling a PC case, pumping cool air in is not very effective unless you can get the hot air out.
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You don’t need windows open. The trickle vents in many windows are fine. We are 5/6 years down the line of having one fitted and no condensation after years of pools of water on window sills etc.
 
Craig1912 said:
You don’t need windows open. The trickle vents in many windows are fine. We are 5/6 years down the line of having one fitted and no condensation after years of pools of water on window sills etc.
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Yes, in an ideal world trickle vents will be sufficient, but all houses are different and did Dale not say he has on occasion still had some condensation?
 
bass_junkie83 said:
Yes, in an ideal world trickle vents will be sufficient, but all houses are different and did Dale not say he has on occasion still had some condensation?
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Yep I think he did but it takes a few weeks to settle down. After years using dehumidifiers which cost a lot more to run and are noisy, the Nuaire was a revelation. It’s almost fit and forget although I’m just about to replace the filters for the first time.
 
I was thinking about this thread only the other day.

Firstly, Tom, well done, they are a doddle to fit, the most difficult part for me, was cutting a hole in the ceiling and also the loft flooring but it wasn't difficult at all with the template and right tools.

I'd left this thread for a while to let things settle down. I did see improvements almost straightaway, although there was the odd morning with some light condensation on the windows but they were exceptionally cold nights prior. Obviously, there's been no problem with the hot and dry weather we've all had and even now, when it's cooled down and the mornings are quite nippy here just now, there's no condensation. I do wish I'd gone for the one with the heater though, the hallway did get cold last winter as it was blowing in the cold air from outside, tempered only by the 'warmer' loft space. Our themostat is located in the hallway and it reacted to the cooler air coming in all the other rooms were warmer, compared to the hallway as a result.

This winter will be the tester, as things were so bad here I think its taken a while to remedy.
 
Thanks again for the update, Dale. It very useful to get a longer term view.

Dave
 
So an update.

The machine has been running for a while now & although it hasn’t been really cold it’s much cooler than it was when I installed it.
I left it set on setting 1 when I fitted it which is the lowest setting (6 being the highest) & once the temperature dropped a very small amount of condensation formed in the corners on a few of the upstairs windows. It was more of a haze than the large droplets we used to get. I then upped the fan setting to 3 & it has disappeared completely again. Since then I have dropped it down to 2 to see what happens (nothing appeared so far after nearly a week) the recommended setting for the size of house we have would be 4/5 so I’m very pleased so far with how it’s working. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when we start getting some sub zero temperatures.
As others have mentioned there is a slight downside as the landing feels slightly cooler now at times but it hasn’t been that cool that I’ve had to fire up the heater element yet.

Hope that is of some help/interest

Cheers T
 
The bathroom creates a lot of condensation, especially after a hot shower. I would prefer to keep the window open, and the extractor fan on, when getting a shower.
 
jonbeeza said:
The bathroom creates a lot of condensation, especially after a hot shower. I would prefer to keep the window open, and the extractor fan on, when getting a shower.
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Well yes I do that as well but this doesn’t eliminate the issue of condensation that forms overnight.
 
tomh1982 said:
Well yes I do that as well but this doesn’t eliminate the issue of condensation that forms overnight.
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True, we used to suffer from overnight condensation. We now vent as much as we can, and we open the little vent slats, at the top of the windows. When the washing machine and dryer is on, we open the windows, to get as much damp air out as possible.
 
Spooky, I was going to update this last week but a short and unexpected stay in hospital got in the way. :puke:

Anyway, it's good to see others having success with this unit too. Ours is doing well, that's a year now it's been running and the house generally feels drier and the air feels cleaner, not stale like it sometimes used to.

I have put ours on setting 3 now for the winter months. We've not experienced any significant condenstaion at all so far this Autumn and we've already had some cold, sub zero nights here. There was a tiny amount on our bedroom windows a couple of weeks ago but I'd forgotten to open one of the windows overnight and it was a proper cold one. We've always slept with the windows on the 'first catch', even before we got our unit.


So far, after a year, it's a thumbs up from me. It's not perfect but 98% of the way there. (y)
 
Dale. said:
Spooky, I was going to update this last week but a short and unexpected stay in hospital got in the way. :puke:

Anyway, it's good to see others having success with this unit too. Ours is doing well, that's a year now it's been running and the house generally feels drier and the air feels cleaner, not stale like it sometimes used to.

I have put ours on setting 3 now for the winter months. We've not experienced any significant condenstaion at all so far this Autumn and we've already had some cold, sub zero nights here. There was a tiny amount on our bedroom windows a couple of weeks ago but I'd forgotten to open one of the windows overnight and it was a proper cold one. We've always slept with the windows on the 'first catch', even before we got our unit.


So far, after a year, it's a thumbs up from me. It's not perfect but 98% of the way there. (y)
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Thanks for the update.

Dave
 
Time for another update, being as the coldest of the winter is now behind us. The condenstation problem at ours was always at its worst through the winter.

We had -14 one night here back in February and whilst this past winter wasn't as cold as last year's, it was still pretty cold, averaging -6 overnight. Our house though has never been drier, I never saw any condenstation on our windows this year and no mould in the wall corners. There was some condensation (but much less) last year but I think the house was still in the drying out process but this year, nothing. The air is sweeter too and our loft, which did suffer to an extent as well is bone dry and the musty smell has gone from it too. I think that putting in place some common sense measures has helped, like opening windows, especially in the bathroom. We always sleep with our windows on the security latch, so they are ajar and we keep our bedroom door ajar too.

The biggest factor though is undoubtedly the Nuaire, it is brilliant. It takes a while to catch up, I'm guessing here at ours that it took over a year, it's a gradual process but it's been worth it.

I can only recommend it, going on personal experience.
 
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Good to hear Dale, and thanks for letting us know how it's been over the winter.
Money well spent - not something that's often discussed here..!!!
 
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