This March has been freezing, there is no other word for it, and one knock on consequence of the cold weather has been an accelerated growth of mould in our shower room.
The shower room used to be a traditional box room with just enough space for a single bed. When child number four came along we had a loft conversion to create the necessary extra bedroom and the box room became a shower room.
It has two outside walls on the north side of the house and the extractor fan has to blow into the prevailing wind which hits that side of the house with any other houses in its way to buffer it. The ceiling also suffers from not enough insulation which means that the ceiling surface temperature is lower than we would like.
High number of daily showers + cold weather = a possible recipe for sudden mould growth
With six of us in the house that means at least six showers a day and with a house guest over the past two weeks this has been increased to seven showers a day at least. The combination of the high numbers of showers and the cold weather has resulted in a sudden burst of mould growth on the ceiling.
Mould grows where there is a high moisture content in the organic material and a high relative humidity in the room, hence a shower room is perfect for mould. The cold weather will have reduced the surface temperature of the ceiling which means more condensation when the warm, moist, air from the shower hits the ceiling. Add all of these factors together and you have mould.
Normally we have a Meaco 20L outside the shower room door on the landing. We like the 20L because the landing is quite warm anyway so we do not need the extra warmth that comes with a Meaco DD8L or Meaco DD8L Junior and the 20L is quiet enough not to disturb anyone at bed-time. It looks good at the end of the corridor and its energy efficiency means that every 5 litres it collects costs next to nothing in terms of electricity consumption.
We’ve been testing.
Over the last month or so though we have been testing other, smaller, dehumidifiers at home to see what they are like to live with and although it has been a useful exercise they have obviously not been man enough for the amount of moisture that we put into the air in the bathroom and the speed of drying required during this cold snap.
So the mould has been wiped off with a mildew cleaner this morning and the 20L will be coming home again from work tonight.
It has been a useful experience though because this all goes into the memory banks to be recycled and used to help our customers with similar problems when they call us or read this blog.
