Cold understairs cupboard
- Thread starter Idiyh
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Have you got a photo of this, so we can understand the space? Is part of the cupboard space an external wall? It's likely just cold because there's no heating in there and it shares external walls (which I assume as still insulated?).
The back wall where the copper pipe is, is the external wall, the decline is the decline is the stairs above and the right wall has the kitchen on the opposite side. what i can quite understand is why the it is extremely cold behind the kitchen units..behind the skirting in the kitchen is bare wall and interestingly where the electric and gas pipes come into the property there is smashed areas of the wall, specifically where the external electric and gas boxes have been recessed into the wall. i really hope you can guide me, thankyou Ian
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Cavity walls are just that, there will be air ingress into the cavity if it isn't filled with foam. If there's holes in the inner wall air will get into the house.
Often with fitted kitchen units, cold air will get in behind them from below the floor under the skirting board.
If there's no heat getting into the cupboard, it will always be cold. if as you say, you have an internal door to the space, the easiest solution would be to make sure that has draught excluder and forget how cold it is in there.
We have a large and small cupboard under the stairs. The large one contains my wife's "fleet" of vacuum cleaners plus the tumble dryer where the exhaust air exits through a vent I made in the air brick in there. As the dryer is "on all day" it never feels cold in there when I open the door.
The small one near the foot of the stairs has the gas meter and it's always cold in there, as there's just a scrap of lino on top of bare floorboards.
Often with fitted kitchen units, cold air will get in behind them from below the floor under the skirting board.
If there's no heat getting into the cupboard, it will always be cold. if as you say, you have an internal door to the space, the easiest solution would be to make sure that has draught excluder and forget how cold it is in there.
We have a large and small cupboard under the stairs. The large one contains my wife's "fleet" of vacuum cleaners plus the tumble dryer where the exhaust air exits through a vent I made in the air brick in there. As the dryer is "on all day" it never feels cold in there when I open the door.
The small one near the foot of the stairs has the gas meter and it's always cold in there, as there's just a scrap of lino on top of bare floorboards.
So what can I do really? If I foam fill I bridge the gap of the cavity and I'm asking for trouble because water can then travel a cross it. There is pipework going to the gas abd electric meter outside. What's happening is the cold transfer through the inner wall to the living room is causing paint to peel and mould to develop as the cold cupboard air hits that of the warmer living room.
Thankyou
Thankyou
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You have the same problem as old as since houses were built with basements and modern technology over 100 years ago developed a better way to heat those areas. When the warm air is allowed to contact the cooler surfaces condensation occurs the same as it would on a glass of your iced tea. To prevent this condensation the cold surface must be warmed, or the moisture content of the warm air lowered to below dew point of the cold surface or the 2 areas be completely sealed 100 percent from each other .
Linked is a bit of useful information that can be used to determine what your conditions are.
Linked is a bit of useful information that can be used to determine what your conditions are.
Dew Point Calculator
Dew Point Calculator is a web resource created by the Image Permanence Institute to help express and visualize the relationship between temperature, relative humidity and dew point.
dpcalc.org