I know we are not the only ones experiencing this (John P mentioned it on the weather thread and a friend has said also). Since the weather turned so violently hot our house has reacted in a weird way. The first day a whole wall (painted in some sort of gloss paint by previous owners), the tiled walls in the bathroom, the shower door, and the bathroom floor were all running with water. Yesterday it was just the bathroom floor, I kept drying it and back it came! I think it’s mostly dried out as the day has gone on today. Do houses sweat in extreme heat?!!
The rear of the house is north facing and is always cool.
For the last two days we have had condensation on the tiled floors in the bathroom,toilet and kitchen. I assume this is due to the high level of humidity, and the cooler temperature of the tiles.
Don’t bother to try and wipe it up as it only comes back in a couple of minutes, but it does disappear overnight.
Only issue is that is does make the tiles a bit slippy, so have to be careful.
Happy sweltering afternoon from sunny Normandy – outdoor thermometer now reads 37.
Just bought a bottle of rum , pina coladas here we come
Our house is a longere with a north-facing back wall half buried and south-facing front.
We recently had the gloss blasted off the granite fireplace, but to look at it now it’s sweating like it’s run a marathon!
One half of the ground floor has a new concrete floor with a membrane, the other half is the original concrete and it’s got about 2mm of water on it now.
The back wall inside is wet to the touch; the front side is dry. All the walls have a thin render inside and that horrible old gloss paint!
For about four months there has been no upstairs floor, just open to the rafters. We put a new first floor in last weekend and I did wonder if that had caused the condensation, by reducing air circulation.
I am glad to see it’s the weather!
I suppose we’ve just had a month of rain which the walls and floor must have taken their share of, and which is now being violently sweated out.
It must be to do with the situation then as our problems are in the North facing part of the house too and the bathroom has the original concrete floor, as where you have the same problem Jamie.
Our damp floor doesn’t disappear overnight Whitters but with the back door and bathroom doors left open this morning it seems to have dried now.
At least the walls have stopped sweating, it’s just the bathroom floor now, I suppose once the house has sweated it out we shall be okay? Hope so anyway as we have stick-on floor tiles in the bathroom and they’re not happy!!
According to my electronic weather forcaster the humidity levels are a round 70% . The small utility room just inside the back door and the small toilet leading off it are tiled foor and half way up the walls. Both these areas have pools of water on the floor and condenstion on the walls. The kitchen floor(also tiled) also has little wet patches everywhere. The granite hearth is sweating and then condensing on the front of the woodburner and dripping back onto the hearth. I have never experienced this before. The temperature, currently 36° outside is not unheard of in the summer here but daytime humidity of 70% is unusually high. If it does get humid it is usually during the night.
I was just about to ask this question, as our hall is now lethal. North facing, shaded and tilled over concrete I thought it was moisture coming up throughout the floor. The humidity description is spot on.
Ok, try to air it as much as possible I guess. I’m glad it’s not just me !
I’ve covered our bare concrete floor in a membrane to try and see if that stops it condensing (smaller objects on the floor were stopping it getting wet).
It’s making me slightly paranoid, I am sure as the water condenses up the wall the ends of some of the ceiling beams look a little damp!
Yes, our house has an old concrete render inside, though it is quite thin and seems permeable.
The greater issue seems to be this gloss paint, of which there are several layers, which is almost like plastic and these parts are much wetter than where there is just exposed render.
The walls need to breathe so you should use a breathable paint and lime plaster/mortar so the water can evaporate to the outside
Quite right OC but I think mostly we’re speaking if that which was inherited with the property, it’s so with ours and we have no funds to change all the outside render nor to re-concrete the floor unfortunately so we must put up with the dampness the humidity causes!
In the winter, all of the tiled walls and floors are dry UNTIL we get some heat going in the house, then we start having water all over the walls and flows. A lot!
In the summer, as soon as things get a bit humid and the we open the doors and windows……same thing happens!
We used to get this in our stone house too where we had interior exposed stone walls. I guess it’s where warm humid air hits the cold stone and the water vapor turns back to water.
We had a similar problem in Winter with our old stone house, then we had a good wood burning stove installed that heated the whole house due to the high KW ( 14) we were advised we only needed 10 kW. We also used a dehumidifier in the bathroom after showering for an hour in the Winter and wet days in the Summer, we had no problems using this routine.
We had a Zibro dehumidifier, we bought it from Carrefour, not the cheapest, but it worked well and is still with us in the UK, luckily haven’t had to use it. I think by using it everyday in the bathroom in Winter it stopped the condensation when warm and humid in the Summer as we had no problems after starting this routine. Before we moved to France permanently the house was damp in the Winter when the insert stove ( which was crap) was lit, living full time with a high powered woodburner it was great.
Such a relief to read this. We’ve been hunting for water leaks the last few days, floor tiles and walls are all sweating. The outside is lime pointed as is most of the inside but the stones are wet. I did wonder if the amount of rain we’ve had and then the sudden switch to extreme heat had caused it, never happened before. I’ve got old sheets and blankets down as like some of you, have been skating around on it. Most bizarre but a relief to know I can stop searching for leaks. Thank you
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