Check for airflow around the frame of windows inside. Caulking/spray insulation behind the moulding to fill gaps left between window and wall during last installation will help both mold and CC inefficiency issues.

[–] naeap@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, dehumidifier is on my shopping list.
Sadly my climate control isn't that fancy. I can only activate the fan of a electrical buffered heater (heats up over night with cheaper tariffs and stores the heat in some stones, which gets "accessed" when a fan is activated, when the room temperature drops under a set temperature)

But as this is our storage room (we didn't immediately need the room, so it's just cramped full with stuff...) the air flow surely is a problem.
Will need to clean the room anyway, so I can treat the areas with mold...

[–] ciferecaNinjo@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I have a dehumidifier but it consumes energy, which I think is ultimately going to come from Russia. Belgium is shutting down its nuclear power plants (2, iirc) and replacing them with 3 natural gas burning plants. Not sure about schedule.. maybe it already happened.

I didn’t know leaks exacerbated the condensation. I don’t think I have any noticeably big gaps but probably all the seams leak a bit. Maybe I should try to seal off entire windows with plastic film.

[–] Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win 1 points 1 week ago

I didn’t know leaks exacerbated the condensation.

Drafts are a source of rapid temperature change which encourages condensation.

[–] ciferecaNinjo@fedia.io 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I have the problem on the inside of exterior walls around the windows, which are usually covered in water. The proprietary anti-fungal sprays work quite well for the cleanup, which I don’t do too often. I’ll just tolerate it until spring.

[–] Zetta@mander.xyz 5 points 1 week ago

That's crazy you guys have to deal with that, in my part of the world it doesn't get that cold and we never have to worry about mold growing on the walls, dry in the desert most of the time

[–] djsp@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

How can you prevent mold with now heating?

By removing organic material from walls, if possible.

Besides condensation water, the kinds of mold that grow on walls need something organic to feed on. Mold grows on wallpaper because it feeds on the cellulose; in the case of paint, it's the organic binding agents that do it.

Silicate paint employs mineral binding agents and so mold can't feed on it. If building a house with “mineral” walls, like bricks or concrete as opposed to wood, using silicate paint may be more expensive upfront but spare trouble in the long run. If renovating a house or apartment with appropriate walls, removing any wallpaper and underlying paint –painstaking as that is– and applying silicate paint should prevent mold growth.

[–] ciferecaNinjo@fedia.io 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I’m seeing the most mold on the plastic frame of the window. Seems strange that the mold finds food in plastic.

[–] djsp@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

That's strange indeed. The mold is hopefully not feeding on the window frame, but rather on invisible dirt laying on the surface of the window frame, in which case regular scrubbing (after removing the mold) should keep it from growing again. In any case, I'm sorry you have to deal with that pesky fucker. Mold sucks.

Having said that, plastic eating mold in the wild, damaging as it could become, would be a wonderful discovery.

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 3 points 1 week ago

Plastic is organic. You might be thinking of the food definition ofeorganic not the chemistry definition.