Dehumidifiers may reduce energy costs as well as solve damp issues

I had to comment on this, as had me own fair share of condensation & mould, especially considering I deal with the ‘lower’ end of the LHA market.
From my experience, us Landlords can take a ‘little’ & I mean 10% of the blame if there’s some’at we can do & we don’t act, but GEES, what could I tell u this week about why I attribute 90% blame to tenants.
I’ve done the air bricks, I even have Environmental Health out (because they have tons of experience in this), to work against me to see what I’m doing wrong, & one woman had been with me approx 7 years, moved into next house about 3 years, both houses modern, never had mould. I couldn’t fathom it, going in there.
Got Env Health out, he summised (I didn’t suss it out), she NOW had THREE dogs, sleeping upstairs at night, panting loads all night, there was the problem.
Anyway, back to this week, about 3 years, I had the problem of all problem houses, decided to tackle good & proper, had new roof with new vents in etc. (roof was on it’s way anyway), put trickle vents in al the windows, & humidistat fans kitchen & bathroom (these normally work in my houses), even painter in for his concoctions, oil based undercoat, pva glue before paint etc.
Problem solved.
2 years this gal been in the house, rang me few weeks ago, mould coming back. AAAHhhh.. I went round & pleasantly pleased, no more than in my own house modern bathroom, was there a bit in her bedroom, minor-And a bit elsewhere-But why was it coming back?
WOULD U BELIEVE IT! She’s taped the fan over in the kitchen, & both kitchen & bathroom fuse spurs turned off. All trickle vents shut too. ‘I open windows in morning’ she said, but same story, when us Landlords go, they’re always shut.
How can u help anyone when they won’t help theirself. Unbeknown to me, she had Env health out (who do talk of me fondly), & they wun’t do ‘ote cause minor.

confirms my previous post. many of my tenants same. i e-mail them what they are doing wrong, make them responsible for the mould and tell them to clean it off.

A physics lesson.
A dehumidifier condenses water vapour from the air and in doing so recovers most of the heat energy which was used to change the water from liquid to vapour in the first place.
A 300 watt unit extracting say, 12 litres per 24 hrs puts roughly 1100 kJ of energy per hour back into the property as warm air during which time It uses1080 kJ/hr. So the net energy used is zero.
The electricity used by the dehumidifier, however, may be more expensive than the heat source for the original vaporisation, e.g. gas, so part of the approx. 5p/hr electricity running cost may not be offset by the energy recouped - but you will have a much drier property!

Reply to the comment left by "Joe Bloggs" at "09/11/2013 - 00:00":

Sorry Joe the dehimidifier will just conceal the problem and it may come as a massive surprise but landlords are actually sometimes responsible for problems.

Also using caps is just the refuge of someone who thinks shouting is a well made point.

Reply to the comment left by "John Daley" at "11/11/2013 - 11:40":

what a silly post. a device that removes moisture cannot be 'concealing' a problem; it is alleviating! did i say that landlords are never actually sometimes responsible for problems?????????????? if so where?