Wood floors above post and pier.....

[Les C]

The rains were accompanied by low temperature air masses, too, hence the greater differential and resulting condensation.

[morganlady]

Are the houses in question double wall construction? Would a single wall house have this problem?
I bought a new freezer in August, and by December, I found rusty spots on the lid. I bought some cupboard liner that was about 1/8 inch thick, and covered the whole surface. It still attracts moisture, but on the plastic surface, not on the metal.

What type of flooring was used - did tile or linoleum also demonstrate this trait?

[Guest]

Hi,
We just moved into our house in hawaiian shores, a cedar kit home built in the 70's. We have a problem where sometimes in the mornings, the floors will be covered in dew/condensation. The house is now being converted to open air, with screens in the peaks of the roof front and back. This is certainly helping to cool things down, I don't know if it is having any effect on the condensation. We are going to install ceiling fans in all the rooms, this should help keep the air moving and dry things out. I was also thinking that if I insulated the floors underneath the house it would help. Any other ideas? Thanks for the help.

[TrevorKane]

I lived on elevated wood floors in Miami for about 12 years - loved them. Some thoughts:

- insulation under the floors is possible, but rarely done in warm climates. Common wisdom I have heard is to put your insulation effort into the ceiling first, then walls.

- the cheaper forms of insulation are a great home for rats and bugs, not as much of a problem in an attic as under a floor.

- if you do manage to create a condensing situation between your insulation and your sub-floor, that has the potential to grow... things.

I'd look to other floor insulation experiences in your neighborhood before taking the plunge. The "breathing" plywood sub-floor has been around for as long as plywood, and it seems to work well. My floor was 65 years old when I moved out and it hadn't aged a bit, except where people had let it get moist and stay that way - mostly around the leaky back door.

I got the dew all over the floor phenomenon a few days a year, it didn't seem to hurt anything. I like the vents in the floor idea - based on my experience, I'd add a layer of stronger wire mesh to the insect screen. Are there opossums in Puna?

[TrevorKane]

My experience with dehumidifiers has been that, mostly, you might as well run a normal (make the room air cold, instead of hot) air conditioner - not only can you use the space while it's being conditioned, but overall the space tends to dry out better. Roll-in dehumidifiers are easier to set up temporarily than a good a/c unit, and cheaper in that way, but a wall unit A/C or a slightly fancier "ductless" unit will do the air-drying job quite well.

It's a slippery slope - the more you run A/C, the more stuff you tend to accumulate that needs that conditioned air. In my "ideal" home, I'd have A/C in the office with the computer and whatever else I just can't live without that doesn't like humidity, keep the rest of the house open to the breeze and don't fill it with stuff that would be ruined from a mildew bloom.

An empty room with high gloss paint on the walls and ceiling and a sealed wood floor isn't very likely to bloom mildew in the first place, and if it does, it's a very quick and easy job to get it off. Throw in a sofa and a couple of chairs and it just gets a little more likely to happen and harder to clean. Pile it floor to ceiling with books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, curtains, blankets, pillows, and bric-a-brac, and now you need to run that A/C or you will get a mold outbreak, and it will be a total nightmare to clean.

My first house was nice and simple when I moved in, just me, a waterbed, a few pieced of donated furniture and my clothes. The ex-owner's cat came to visit once in awhile and I would have to vacuum out the fleas from the one carpeted room a few weeks later. I almost never ran the A/C, my electric bills were more customer charge than they were usage charge. Fast forward 10 years, fill it up with accumulated crap, a wife and a baby. The cats are banned from the house because we can't get the fleas out anymore, the A/C runs full-time 12 months a year, and we even had the 60amp meter can catch on fire because the previous owners had installed a 100amp breaker box behind it, and between the A/C, water heater, electric clothes dryer and everything else, we were overloading one of the branches enough to get smell of smoke from the burning wire insulation.

So, I guess it's all in how you want to live. I want to live simply, but somehow am having a hard time getting back there.

[Bullwinkle]

condensation .... ie dew point

Out here I notice the condensation arriving with the sun up

Overnight the house cools by radiating its latent heat, ---- at about sun up the house cooler than the warm air arriving from the east - condensation then forms on the colder surfaces of the house - windows the tell tale

keeping the warm air moving and warming said house the key to reducing the moisture from condensing in my experience

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by Bullwinkle

condensation .... ie dew point

Out here I notice the condensation arriving with the sun up

Overnight the house cools by radiating its latent heat, ---- at about sun up the house cooler than the warm air arriving from the east - condensation then forms on the colder surfaces of the house - windows the tell tale

keeping the warm air moving and warming said house the key to reducing the moisture from condensing in my experience

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Thats exactly my problem. I am installing large ceiling fans in all the rooms, and might just open it up some more....