Lowering temperature in your house - consequences

[Stahlmann]

I used to have 23°C in my room. Switched it to 20°C (I'm measuring it using shite thermometer from supermarket, using it in random 2-3 ponts). Mostly for health benefits. I wanted to be more adaptable to temperature (don't get sick everytime there is beginning of autumn/spring). We tend to have houses made from bricks and concrete in my culture (it's not nitpicking, just want to give you some insight). I can't change temperature in whole house.

This is what happened:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/153167562@N05/Xj2701

Only with 3 degree difference. There wasn't any seroius rainings during last year in my area. No major damages to the roof too.
Only drawback I can see is connected with the fact that this the part of the wall which is connected with more professional EREmite... (lady just keeps [probably] 10-15°C in her house).

I can upload different side of the room, but it doesn't look better even if photo would show part of the room (same issue with moldiness).

I ponder if it's effective to save money on heating and then pay for painting.
Any thoughts?

[J_]

Condensation occurs apparently in your room. In the corners where ventilation is poor. Mold can be unhealthy.

(As warmer temperature in the room means the air can contain more moist or has a lower relative humidity and lower temperature in the room the air can contain less moist and has a higher relative humidity; with cold ceilings or walls you could get even more condensation with high room temperature (with a high humidity) than with low temperature).

By lowering your roomtemperature and maintaining the same moistproduction you have raised the relative humidity in the air of the room.

So I think the solution must be found in: a. better ventilation (with dryer air) and or use of a dehumifider and/or b. better insulation of the walls/ceiling and/or c. lower temperature and moistproduction in your room. Be aware that peoples breath contain a lot of moist, do you use the room to sleep?

Cheap solution: Ventilate the room in the evening with coolder outside air, and ventilate when you are away while setting the heating device low during your absence.

[jacob]

It's increased humidity condensing on colder surfaces, what J_ said. You need to air out the room from time to time. Best way is to open everything (windows, doors) wide up for 5-10 minutes, maybe less. That's long enough to replace the air but short enough to avoid cooling down the walls, stuff, etc. Do that as much as needed.

There are mold-reducing/resistant/etc. paints, but you're not winning the war that way. Mold is bad for humans (humans are sometimes good for mold though ). You can remove it with (health hippies close your eyes) chlorine, if it's just on the surface. That's no way to win either. Growth conditions need to be removed which are the excess relative humidity (read up on that term).

Two hundred years ago, room temperatures of 10-15C were standard (recommended). Back then houses weren't built tight, so they were able to breathe well. Now, having a breathing house is considered inefficient or somesuch so they're built tight.---resulting on more mechanical (HVAC) management. Room temperatures have gradually crept up. For example, when I grew up, I always heard that "standard room temperature" was 18C. That was in the 1980s. Now it's 22C.

I keep our house at 14C in the winter. It's old enough to breathe and heating is "central air" which tends to be very dry, so we actually have a humidifier (cost a few hundred dollars and part of the system) that adds humidity. I can dial that in. So if I see condensation somewhere (typically on windows), I dial it down.

[fiby41]

I strongly suspect this is due to the capillary effect. Do you live in the top most floor of your building? Is the roof immediately above your ceiling?

[J_]

I keep our house at 14C in the winter. It's old enough to breathe....

I keep our house at 9 C in winter, and is is also old enough to breathe too....So it hardly uses energy then....
But I live in winter somewhere else (in the Alps) in a small, very well insulated, appartment. I go to wintersport on my savings on heating..

[Stahlmann]

Do you live in the top most floor of your building?

Yes, that's right.

Is the roof immediately above your ceiling?

Yes, that's right.

do you use the room to sleep?

Yes, that's right

...
Cheap solution: (a) Ventilate the room in the evening with colder outside air, and (b) ventilate when you are away while setting the heating device low during your absence.

a) Can I do it in the morning? It's too cosy in the evening to introduce nigthly, fresh air (even with 20°C; this my level of adaptation atm)
b) Hmm. I'm pondering on the cost of extra reheating which would take place after such ventilation.

This tackles a bigger issue anyway... Rest of family thinks that the only way to go away with moldiness is to keep high temperature in whole house - 23°C.


EDIT: jacob answered it, but... To Der Führer: You haven't told us about your war with moldiness, have you ?. Is it possible to keep 14-15 °C without any new friends on your walls?! I must say that this discussion boils down to this.


I'd say that I live in sealed house, but there is no "active" HVAC (we're basing on https://www.badshop-web.de/images/produ ... 6274_0.jpg (*))

(*) This is some kind of magic to me... After visits to heritage parks, I must say that most effective heaters were located in centres of the houses. Nowadays, we put them by the wall. With rough estimation 50% of energy goes into the wall . Maybe I just don't understand something.

[Jean]

I had 6°C and no mold.
The problem lies elsewhere.

Maybe due to the colder temperature, you don't feel the need to air as much as when it was 23°C?

[Stahlmann]

I'm back to flood you with question

Somebody famous in bohemian capitalist circles wrote:

The staples are ammonia, baking soda, borax, chlorine, soap, and clear vinegar. Just remember to never combine chlorine and ammonia.

What is meant by chlorine and ammonia? I mean I want "buyable" and "storageable" stuff, which I could safely put in basement of suburbia home.

Well... I'm good at looking reading first paragraph at wikipedia/google (later it gets more difficult)...

1) Chlorine

After looking for "chlorine 1kg" in google I can see only mixes for (home) pools. It doesn't look cheap/efficient. I check the label. I see "Sodium hypochlorite". Then I see they put expiration date on such products like 3 months on such aggressive media... Is this real? Will it form pellets after such date? Or will this oxidize? Will it be dangerous then (there is usually no ventilation in basements)?

I ask it here, because the seller in chemical shop would think I'm crazy and would recommend me supermarket market solution after third question...

2) Ammonia

My answer is that I should look for "Ammonium bicarbonate". Am I right, teachers?

Thanks in andvance for those at hard level of ERE.
I hope I brought 3 pieces of puzzles to the table (at least measured in fascination of the topic).

PS. I need this to prove my parents that there two solutions: low temperature+lot of ventilation (opening/shutting window)+cleaning as above +being able to wear clothes -> low bills
OR
high temperature (right now there is 24 C in my room)+not so much ventilation+bought dehumidifier+ "fungus is not growing"-> high bills (in winter months this was like 1J (mo.) /1 mo. only for heating house [after PPP exchange])... or just acquire knowledge to not pay in the future, when I'll be more independent (I don't complain really, but many conversations ended with "Why have you been so cheap recently?").

[Sclass]

Dust mites migrate to remaining warm spots in house. I recall booting up a computer in a room I left I unheated and mites came pouring out. All over the place.

[enigmaT120]

What is meant by chlorine and ammonia? I mean I want "buyable" and "storageable" stuff, which I could safely put in basement of suburbia home.

He's talking about readily available cleaning agents. The chlorine refers to chlorine bleach, and yes I think the active ingredient is sodium hyporchlorite. Ammonia is just a liquid ammonia solution, I don't use it because it stinks/fumes. But if you mix the two (two good cleaning agents mixed are better than either one by itself, right?) then it releases chlorine gas which, while really cool to look at, is poisonous.

[vexed87]

Our house has an unheated conservatory (glass roofed sunroom in US?). It's closed off from the rest of the house and was added to the property after it was built, so isn't plumbed into the gas central heating system. It has a electric resistance heater, but these are dangerous to leave unattended and expensive to run, so it's off unless we are using the room (only on special occasions at this time of year!)

In the winter the inside temperatures drop to 1-2 degrees C. above the outdoor temps, especially overnight when there is no sunlight to heat the room. We had a really bad mold problem in there before I got a dehumidifier unit for the room. I reluctantly bought a £150 desiccant dehumidifier, set it to 50% relative humidity, and the unit is in operation 24/7 but shuts off when the RH is reached. It's costing £3-6 a month to run through the coldest months, I'm hoping it won't be needed as the outdoor temps rise. Venting the room when it's so cold outside didn't help because the room isn't heated and the RH rises sharply as the temp drops close to freezing and below.