Building a Home in Davao

[Jack Peterson]

1 hour ago, Tommy T. said:

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 One of the Problems here Tom is they don't use a damp course so water may be drawn up from Lower Ground level. Fortunately we did have a damp course and thus have never experienced sweating walls but I have friends that have, I dug this out from some time ago,;

***

How to stop concrete sweating

Dry out the room by air movement: a high volume low speed fan works well.

Turn down the air conditioning/turn up the heat to keep the concrete floor temperature and the air temperature at similar levels.

Use a dehumidifier to remove moisture from the air and reduce the condensation. ***

 Hope this helps a little  

[Tommy T.]

34 minutes ago, Jack Peterson said:

 One of the Problems here Tom is they don't use a damp course so water may be drawn up from Lower Ground level. Fortunately we did have a damp course and thus have never experienced sweating walls but I have friends that have, I dug this out from some time ago,;

***

How to stop concrete sweating

Dry out the room by air movement: a high volume low speed fan works well.

Turn down the air conditioning/turn up the heat to keep the concrete floor temperature and the air temperature at similar levels.

Use a dehumidifier to remove moisture from the air and reduce the condensation. ***

 Hope this helps a little  

Thanks for the suggestions, Jack... I have tried a few of them, but cannot change the basic construction in the ground... The other ideas may, hopefully, help a bit.

[Jack Peterson]

5 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

Thanks for the suggestions, Jack... I have tried a few of them, but cannot change the basic construction in the ground... The other ideas may, hopefully, help a bit.

 You can add a damp course now if needed but you would need to seek help on this, there are plenty of Hints and suggestions out there in Google world, you need to do something Tom as Rising Damp can be expensive if left too long,

 I am no Builder but as we get older we listen more to where things go wrong. 

[Tommy T.]

4 minutes ago, Jack Peterson said:

 You can add a damp course now if needed but you would need to seek help on this, there are plenty of Hints and suggestions out there in Google world, you need to do something Tom as Rising Damp can be expensive if left too long,

 I am no Builder but as we get older we listen more to where things go wrong. 

Yeah... I hear you... I will look into this... thanks for your advice...

[hk blues]

We experience this to a slight extent in our place but only in a small area in the master bedroom - funnily enough right opposite the a/c unit!  We had a huge problem in Hong Kong with this due to the year-round humidity (as did everyone living there) so we used dehumidifiers all year around.  I'm not sure if the problem you are experiencing, or that we have, is related to humidity or poor construction or both (probably both) but we have waterproofed our rear firewall 3 or 4 times now and that seems to have almost cured the problem save the small section I mention.  From what I can see around me, dampness is not uncommon here but I hate it.  

[intrepid]

3 hours ago, Tommy T. said:

So, I have a question for the group...

We run the air/con in the bedroom at night. Sometimes we run it in the living room if it is really hot.

We find that the walls in the rooms or even outside often "sweat..." the warm, humid, outside air condenses on the walls inside and outside and sometimes is so much that excess runs down the walls onto the floors. I am sure that part of the reason is that it is still rainy season here (rains almost every day or night or both) and that the surrounds are orchard trees.

Has anyone else had this problem and, if so, can offer any suggestions to reduce or eliminate this? Of course, the obvious is to not use the air/con... I have tried setting the air/con to "dry" at a fairly warm temperature, and that seems to help a bit, but we also want fresh air.

I have also tried just opening up the air/conned room(s) during the day so that ambient air circulates. This has also helped a bit.

I guess that I am also thinking of some of the hotels where L and I have stayed where there is no condensation on the walls, even when we ran the air/con very cold... So I wonder why this does not also occur there?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Tommy,

I have an apartment above my garage back in Maryland.  That room is 512 sq ft and has a 12’ high cathedral ceiling.  The whole place is super insulated.  Since I need both heat and aircon I decided to install a split unit, non-invertor heat-pump.  The calculator called for 13K+ BTU for heat and 12K BTU for Cooling.  I was worried about the high ceiling and sometimes colder winters.  I thought a 12K BTU Heat Pump may be a little shy doing the job and decided to step up to the next available 18K BTU.  What a mistake.  It’s okay in the winters but in the summers the room stays so damp when the aircon is on that the tile floors are wet and the humidity is almost unbearable at times.  As you know the aircon is actually a dehumidifier.  However, being oversized it does not run long enough to get the moister out.  It cools down too fast and short cycles.  The only way to solve this issue for mine is there is a dry cycle which seems to work.  If I were to do it over I would not have installed the larger unit and installed additional baseboard heat if needed.   I’m not sure if this may be related to your issue but may give a little insight.  Also my room is super insulated FWIW.

Now our home here we have to issues with moisture inside the home.  I mentioned before we run at least one or two aircons 24/7.  One of the larger ones is a 2.5 hp split, non-invertor.  I have a the condenser drain at the back of the house draining into a 5 gal bucket which we use for watering plants.  On average that bucket will fill in about ~3 hours.  That is a lot of moisture being removed from inside the house.  Again, just for what it's worth.

[Terry P]

2 hours ago, Jack Peterson said:

 One of the Problems here Tom is they don't use a damp course so water may be drawn up from Lower Ground level. Fortunately we did have a damp course and thus have never experienced sweating walls but I have friends that have, I dug this out from some time ago,;

***

How to stop concrete sweating

Dry out the room by air movement: a high volume low speed fan works well.

Turn down the air conditioning/turn up the heat to keep the concrete floor temperature and the air temperature at similar levels.

Use a dehumidifier to remove moisture from the air and reduce the condensation. ***

 Hope this helps a little  

Hi Tommy just a bit of imput from a builder here in the UK

My understanding is your home is solid wall construction not cavity. To my mind this method is fine when not introducing humidity or temperature difference between inside and out

Air will always attempt to find ambient that's humidity or temperature. If you have porous uninsulated exterior walls that could be where the problem lies. Your AC is bringing down the wall temperature encouraging moisture through the wall highlighted by the moisture on the outside also.

In dry mode the more moisture extracted by the AC the more will be pulled in so self defeating

Consider a waterproof coating on the exterior walls. This is also highlighted in HKs reference to waterproofing his wall 

Installing a thermal insulation barrier will also aid the efficiency of your air-conditioning

Don't take this solution as gospel I only have experience of building in colder climates but it may be worth looking into

 

 

 

[hk blues]

4 minutes ago, intrepid said:

Now our home here we have to issues with moisture inside the home.  I mentioned before we run at least one or two aircons 24/7.  One of the larger ones is a 2.5 hp split, non-invertor.  I have a the condenser drain at the back of the house draining into a 5 gal bucket which we use for watering plants.  On average that bucket will fill in about ~3 hours.  That is a lot of moisture being removed from inside the house.  Again, just for what it's worth.

When we were in Hong Kong we had dedicated dehumidifiers which pulled out 10L a day - they would have done more but they filled up and switched off when the tank was full and we were out.  Here, not at as much but still enough to cause a problem if we're relying on the A/C alone to do the job.  

[Tommy T.]

Well... I have some updates and observations...

I have learned that most or all of the "sweating" of the walls "seems" to be from simple temperature differentials. When we run the air/con in the bedroom at my preferred temperature of about 16 C, and then we open up the room in the morning, the walls sweat and water literally runs down to the floor. So we changed our setup to run the air/con at about 22 C or so. We then open up the room a bit later in the morning - maybe 10 am or later - and make sure to leave windows and sliding door open to breezes. That seems to minimize or eliminate the wet wall syndrome!

We notice this on some other walls too. Overnight, the ambient temperature outside seems to dip regularly to about 75 F (sorry, I don't always convert temperatures since I use some USA calibrated thermometers and hygrometers) which I think is about 24 C? It is very damp here often due to all the orchard trees and other greenery around the home. So far, it seems that just opening up windows and doors some time late in the mornings or early afternoons promotes drying of the condensation on the walls... At least, that is what I see so far...

Meanwhile, the foreman has continued to show up here intermittently, especially when we have particular issues - like one of the water heaters (Stiebel/Eltron) stopped working, leaks from the roof, problems with the roof deck water tank float valve...  I am so very pleased with his attitude and attention, even though I know he is not a journeyman anything. He doesn't always fix things right away or properly, but he listens to our advices and also is inventive and handy. We can't ask for anything more than that!

We have been organizing the back yard now for planting vegetables mainly (for both of us), and flowers mostly for L...

And, now that we have a lot of gravel on the road, I might actually wash the car for the first time in 4 months!

Life continues to improve!!!

[Jake]

6 hours ago, Tommy T. said:

Life continues to improve!!!

I experienced similar feelings of accomplishments.  You, being a blue water skipper must have endured and survived storms with waves at mast high level.  And everything is WET.  What a massive relief when you finally anchor at a safe harbor or cove, drinking the local booze and sleeping for the next 72 hrs.  

What is your downtime like while the wife is satisfied with your honey-do list?  In order words, complete freedom to do anything or nothing at all.  How many times have you been invited to a "drinking session"?  Yeah Shipmate, relax and enjoy the view.  I know I would.  Respectfully Jake