Accelerate drying after insertion

Hello,

over the turn of the year 16/17, our angled bungalow was built in KS construction method. WDVS was, I believe, installed in November 16. Inside, gypsum plaster was used, underfloor heating beneath cement screed. In the last 4 weeks before moving in (in January 17), two dehumidifiers were used; the drying progress was said to be good enough that the floor moisture measurement gave the green light for our glued vinyl. Move-in then mid-February 17.

Yesterday the expert was here. Not without reason. In the bedroom on an exterior wall and in the utility room there are condensation problems. On average, the house has an absolute humidity of 9.5-11.5g/kg air. Our inexpensive, distributed hygrometers in the house mostly showed 55-60% relative humidity in March but have risen significantly again since mid-April up to 75% in the bedroom. His measurements showed that it is with high probability (his report is still pending) residual construction moisture. Could also explain why our vinyl has detached from the floor again *grumble*.

In short: it is my house, I want to avoid further problems as quickly as possible. I don’t care at the moment who is to blame here (whether we should have moved in later or ventilated better... that should not be clarified here). So far we have only aired out once daily with shock ventilation, across the whole house. Whether a second time is possible, I do not know yet. That’s why I thought about setting up another dehumidifier now, in addition to ventilation. Whether it will help, I will only know afterwards. The question for me is rather: better two smaller ones (10-15L/day each) or one large (50L/day) dehumidifier? It is also a cost issue. The small ones have the advantage that I can place them distributed in the house, but have only a tiny condensate container and must hope that the automatic shutoff really works!? For the large one I found a model with an integrated condensate pump - so it could run continuously. But then there will surely be a lack of suitable air circulation in the house, right? Does anyone have a tip on what I should go for?

Best regards

PS: I am unsure about the category classification here in the forum, so please feel free to move it. Thanks

Don’t you have a controlled residential ventilation? I think once a day is too little, even the tilt position will hardly help. From a gut feeling, I would use 2 dryers. Otherwise, it is worth mentioning that in the past people lived dry for a whole year. Keep your head up, fingers crossed and repeat the costs. Good luck! In short, regards

Our inexpensive hygrometers distributed throughout the house usually showed 55-60% relative humidity in March, but since mid-April they have risen significantly again, sometimes reaching 75% in the bedroom.

How warm do you keep it? Before setting up dehumidifiers, you should check whether heating/ventilation has already been fully utilized. You should manage to ventilate crosswise through the house twice a day (morning/evening), heating warmly in between.

No, we have consciously decided against a controlled residential ventilation system; we know about it from friends. The rooms are between 22-23 degrees, except the bedroom (with 18-19) and the technical room, where it is 20-21. However, I cannot heat arbitrarily high, because with a supply temperature of >=28°C the vinyl will probably give up. The presumably existing humidity probably even causes a lot of condensation to form at the drinking water connection (inlet temperature approx. 4°C) and at the brine lines of the deep drill hole (although these are already insulated). So much that it results in actual puddles. I think, especially in the area of the technical room, a dehumidifier will initially be useful. What actually is the whole background, I forgot: the expert yesterday said that this trapped moisture can well take 3-4 years to really be gone – I had also heard this somewhere during construction time, just repressed it. My question therefore once again: can I shorten this time with construction dryers? In other words, if it would run all day and could even reduce the humidity to 40% during the day, would that accelerate the drying of the plastered masonry?

Condensation at 70% humidity, non-insulated connections, etc. That sounds to me more like construction defects than usage problems. How was the regular air exchange demonstrated in your case? If you do not have [Kontrollierte-Wohnraumlüftung], the air exchange must work differently - airing out is not an acceptable solution here.

Hi,

Condensation at 70% humidity, non-insulated connections, etc. That sounds to me more like construction defects than usage problems.

It doesn’t have to be a construction defect. Ventilating once a day in a new building is FAR too little. Less than 3 times daily really doesn’t work!
Non-insulated connections can also be things like a water meter. Ours isn’t insulated either and at first it also dripped down there.

to the OP:
We used various dehumidifiers.
Trotec TTK 105 S, TTK140 S and TTK 170 S. The small 105 are already quite decent, but the bigger ones extract significantly more water from the air. Calculated by dehumidifying performance they also have a significantly lower power consumption. The 140 consume the same power as the 105, but release more water. And the 170 does consume 50% more power than the 105, but for us it easily extracted twice as much water.

So better one big one than two small ones. They are all noisy.

Regards,
Andreas