We have lived overseas in the USA and Singapore. So we have experienced being tenants in places with mould or mould prevention.
In Singapore,
While away, as long-term ex-pats, we have rented out our home to tenants. So we know what it is like to be landlords.
Preventing Mould
Mould can be caused by condensation, from water, from outside, or inside.
To Prevent Mould from Outside
1 Leaking from a flat roof, or window seals, or burst pipes overhead, is often obviously coming down from the ceiling.
Rising Damp
Water from the ground after rainfall can create rising damp. Indoors, this would show in rotting skirting boards.
A damp course about a foot off the ground is usually visible on the outside wall. Even if there is flooding, a double wall should hold the water between the walls, and the water should sink down and dry out.
Replacing Interior Water Pipes
\You might get leaking from small pupes which were the fashion, introduced in the late 1900s, when big pipes were thought to be clumsy and wasting material and money. However, smaller pipes are easily blocked eventually by the build-up of scale/calcium, disintegrating pipes, debris, cracking from age.
Small bore or blocked pipes are often inaccessible, without access points at intervals. Therefore, replacing them means tearing down walls, at huge cost. Also the time taken means moving out tenants or residents. This means loss of rental, or the cost of rehousing during rebuilding, out at huge cost. Or leaving flats vacant, and losing rent. It can be cheaper, quicker and easier to seal off the faulty pipes.
Replacement pipes can be placed either along the floor level. But if this would block dorrways, the pipes would have to be built H shape around doors. So, installing pipes along the ceiling edges is often preferred.
Radiators
To prevent mould, one suggestion is, do not dry damp or wet clothes over radiators.
One advantage of underfloor heating instead of radiators, is that people are not drying clothes over radiators.
On the other hand, radiators may be keeping furniture away from the walls.
So where do you put clothes to dry them? In a tumble dryer.
Spin cycle of a washing machine.
Choice & Position Of Airers
You have three choices.
1 Dry, or wash and dry, elsewhere. Such as in a Laundromat. In the olden days the laundry was cheaper and clothes were sent to a laundry service.
2 Or Dry Outdoors
In the old days, everything was washed weekly, once off, all together. The worst water was removed on a rolling wringer, then clothes were dried on a washing line in the back garden, waving in the wind. Laater, on a space saving, triangular, horizontal, head-height, rotating airer, in the wind. Out of the building.
In poor countries and poor areas you see washing hung on poles out of windows of flats. Or over balconies. Or hung on folding airers outdoors in the sun. This is done in Singappore, where HDB (government blocks) have poles. But bigger flats in ex-pat condos ban washing on the front balconies around the gardens and swimming pools. Washing is supposed to be on the back balcony overlooking an enclosed air shaft and ground floor dustbins, invisible to those having meals out on their recreation balconies..
In the UK the rain might make this impossible on some days. So you can wash on a sunny day.
But some building regulations in the UK ban washing on balconies and patios overlookied by other residents.
What can you do? You can dry your washing outside if you have an aswning, so nothing is seen from flats above, and a screen to keep your washing out of sight of passers by. Would the screen restrict the air flow? You can have a lattice screen which lets the air in, but keeps washing out of sight.
Overhead Airers
Overhead airers keep washing out of the way. And heat rises. In the olden days you had overhead airers in kitchens, often in basements or outhouses. Airers were also found over the fixed bath in bathrooms.
But these were days when you did not have central heating.
If you use a humidifier, you are moving water off the wall and windows and wet clothes into the humidier. But if you leave water in the humidifer, it can evaporate into the air again. So you are advised to empty the water outdoors daily, or nightly, or whenever needed.
Air Rooms
Leave bedroom door open at night. Each person breathes out moisture. One person in a small bedroom breathes out moisture. Two people in a small bedroom breathe out twice the moisture.
A flat occupied or rented by one person has one lot of moisutre. Working from home all day creates more moisture. A couple creates twice the moisture, from breathing, washing clothes and bedding, the kettle boiling water, boiling food in a saucepan without a lid, or not opening the windows and using the air in the cooker hood recirculating or better still an extractor.
In germany they 'burp the house' like burping a baby, every morning, opening windows and doors to creat a though draft.
Creating fresh air seems a good idea. We had a gas leak for severl weeks, months, years. The house opposite had asbestos and the wife who stayed at home died of lung problems, not knowing the cause, while the husband working away from home all day did not. Only when the house was sold and demolished to make room for building four semi town houses on the land was the asbestos problem discovered..
Keep Watch
Curing Mould - Take Acton
If you have not prevented, at least you can cure.
2 Is there any point in moving the airer?
The old fashioned A shapeWooden airer
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