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Condensation & what can be done about it


jolliolli

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I'm getting a lot of condensation at the moment and i'm wondering if double glazing the windows would help. Has anyone here had issues with condensation and changed over to double glazing? If so did it help with the condensation? Tank is open topped and i'm running MH lights so enclosing the tank is not an issue. I have a heat pump but that doesn't really seem to help that much.

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I am by no means an expert on the matter and at first I was going to shot the idea down but after a bit of a think, it might just help.

I was going to say that one pane of glass will keep out humidity just as well as two panes will, but then realised that is only half the problem, the second half is that the glass is colder then the surrounding air and there for condensers the water out of it. So when you have double glazing the pane of glass that is in contact with the air in your house is warmer because you have used a layer of air (well nitrogen I believe) as a insulator and there for less temperature difference between the air in the house and the pane of glass so it is harder for condensation to form.

Still I think you might see better results with a dehumidifier.

Just thinking out loud. I am prepared to be proven wrong :D

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This is my field

First question is have you got alloy or timber windows?

Next is how much do you want to spend?

How double glazing works is how oeminx has mentioned

The basic DG unit is 4mm glass/ 6mm AIR space/ 5mm glass with the thicker glass to the inside

As Ryan mentioned, you can gas fill the units with Argon. Argon gas has insulation values in itself and the cost is about $20 to $30 per square meter.

All the units should be the same makeup so that that have the same values as far as insulating or if one is more efficent than another, you will still get "crying windows"

Next thing is you should get every window in the house done as the dampness will be in every room. You will need to change your window frames to cope with the thicker units. There is a system called "Retro Fitting" but the frame that the units are glazed into look as ugly as sin and being made from alloy, they create a path for heat to escape and cool to come in around the edges as well as possibly defaluing your home..

After you have mainly solved your window condensation problems, you have to ask yourself where has all that moisture gone that was inside the air in your home? the answer of course is that its still air bourne or has found another place to sellte/gather. This is normally under the furniture or beds.

If you were to be doing renovations I would recomend double glazing withour any hesitation at all but if your heat pump isnt doing the job, its either too small (or you need a 2nd unit) or your not setting it correctly

In winter, we have our aircon unit set on heat through the day and on dehumidify at night, if theres no-one home through the day, set it to dehumidify through the day as well. As you know, it only takes a couple of minutes to heat the home when you arrive back after work.

The thing to remember is that the only reason your getting crying windows is because of the moisture in the air so you should be aiming to reduce the moisture rather than hide the problem

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A lot of the problem can be solved by opening windows as well. The building code requires that occupiable rooms have 10% of the floor area in windows for natural light and 5% of the floor area in openable windows for natural ventilation. Windows will not ventilate unless you open them.

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Hey thanks for all the info guys. I will try experimenting with the heat pump, we have only had it put in a couple of months ago, we have two units one in the bedroom and one in the lounge. Made sure we bought the right size unit (or larger I think) but i suspect we havne't been operating it correctly as we don't leave it on all day... hence the moisture.

There is a 'dry' option but when I run it in this mode it seems to put out cold air which isn't pleasant! I do have a dehumidifier that my parents have borrowed, I might try running that in combo with the heatpump to pull the initial moisture out of the air and see how that goes. Thanks for your comments on the retrofit barrie, that was an option we were looking at, but it doesn't sound so great. I had thought about the DVS, HRV option but have heard some conflicting reports about their effectiveness.

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you will find that you need to raise the temp when on dehumidifing but at night your in bed so just let it do its thing and either snuggle up or put another blanket on the bed.

The amount of moisture in your house will supprise you and even when your breathing, its putting more moisture in the air.

As I mentioned, if your not home for the day, dehumidify through the day as well

With ours (Fugistsu{sp?}) every start of winter, we have to dehumidify for a few weeks then by now its only 1 or 2 nights per week

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