Is there a cheaper way to rid a room of damp than buying a dehumidifier? I can't afford the between £90 upwards price but need to do something. Most of the house is damp to some degree but I would be happy with putting something in the bedroom and the sewing room. The bedroom for obvious reasons and the sewing room because my fabrics are going damp and some I noticed have mould on them.

Some clothes in the bedroom drawers had started to go mouldy as well and I had to get them all out and wash them.

Even something temporary until I can find a dehumidifier on sale or a used one I can afford.

Thanks

this probably wont be much help,but someone suggested to me that the black mould growing on my bedroom wall was possibly due to condensation,not damp walls(i used to dry washing on the radiators)Possibly true as my windows are all badly condensed up every morning.
.Apart from not drying the washing on the radiators,and keeping windows open,i dont know what to do about it though.We once bought little plastic boxes full of,i presume,salt,from wilkos i think ,that attracted moisture,in our old house.Not sure how effective they were,but it was fun to see them fill up with water,it felt like they were helping!

We do dry clothes on the radiators at the moment as our tumble dryer is broken. BUT the problem has been before that, the sewing room has never had anything on the radiators. I have seen the ones with salt in them but didn't think they really worked. I guess I could give them a try at least and see if it helps any..

thanks

We live in an old house with Sash windows. When we moved in everywhere had mould on it. We totally decorated, and now have a dehumindifier on 24/7 and have to empty it every day.
If it is full or is turned off for any reason, the condensation on the windows gets really bad and the mould starts growing on the pipes in the toilet.
I cant see any other way of keeping the damp down without a dehumnidifier.
Lea :) :)

Dad used to have a condensation problem in the living room, nowhere else, and we couldn't figure out why.  Then one week he was going away for the weekend so didn't buy his usual bunch of fresh flowers with his weekly shop.  Turns out the radiator under the windowsill was evaporating all the water out of the vase on the windowsill and all the water from re-filling the vase every other day was going straight onto the windows as condensation.  So are you doing anything in those rooms creating a lot of water?  Fresh flowers, drying clothes has already been covered, damp towels, dog bowls near radiators, that kind of thing?

I know you don't want to spend out on a dehumidifyer but if you can I can't recommend them hightly enough. We bought an Ebac in 1992 and it was amazing. We lived in a modern flat, seemed  air tight (if that makes sense !). All central heating but no way of damp air escaping apart from leaving windows open which defeated the object with the heating on !. We had no garden so had to dry washing indoors. The condensation was awful and the atmosphere in the rooms was horrible. Anyway, within 24 hours of putting the Ebac in the flat we were free from condensation and the wasing dried really easily - not what a dehumidifyer is designed for but it's what it does !. We have moved a couple of times since, used it a lot during the winters in our last house and it's been lent out to two friends, both had plumbing leaks and they used it to get the moisture out of their carpets !. We don't need it in our current home but when we were renovating (Oct-May this year) we used it to help dry out the plastering !.
It's old, looks old fasioned complared to new ones but we'll keep it in the garage because who knows when it will come in useful again !. The only make I can recommend is Ebac, I'm sure there are other good ones too.......but do try and get one.

I bought a mini dehumidifer in argos for about £40 and it did the job (we had a leaking roof) it just needed emptying more often.

I was told that they use an awful lot of electricity but as we only needed it for a few days I didn't really notice.

LMAO.  What, do you kids all live in the hood?

>What, do you kids all live in the hood?

What's that?

I measured what mine takes out each day of my country cottage.
3 LITRES of water per day!!!!
Dread to think what our house would be like if we didnt have it running all the time,
There is a noticble difference in condensation when it switches itself off when full!!
Lea :) :)

I was always told that to beat condensation you need both heat and ventilation! :)

> I was always told that to beat condensation you need both heat and ventilation

When we were living in our bedroom we had terrible problems with condensation and mould. We cooked/washed up etc in there. It wasn't cold in the room (although the rest of the house had no heating) and was a modern build with good insulation and double glazing. Although we did try to open windows when we could, it was just too cold and our only heating was an electric convection heater, so way too expensive to leave windows open too long :( Now we have a proper kitchen with an extractor fan and the whole house is heated etc and the bedroom is only used for it's proper purpose, we have no problems at all. As Golidlocks says, heat and ventilation are the answer - unless you have an actual damp problem in the house, in which case you won't get rid unless the prime source of the damp is sorted :(