Alfie wrote his name in the condensation on the box room window on Monday morning, and then drew a stegosaurus underneath it, which is how I knew things were as bad as I thought.
January is the month our house is at its wettest. We do nine loads of washing a week, we have no tumble dryer (there's nowhere to put one, and I've never liked the idea of the running cost), and we live in a 1930s semi that seems to get a little moisture out of every breath. The bedroom windows run with water on cold mornings, and by Friday there's a tidemark along the sill in Isla's room. I'm writing this on Wednesday, which is towel day, with the machine on its second cycle and the smell of warm cotton coming from the lounge.
The routine
Nothing clever. This is what happens between October and March, and January is when it all gets tested:
- Every load is spun at 1400 so it comes out as dry as the machine can manage.
- Wet washing goes on the heated airer in the dining end of the through-lounge, never more than two thirds full. If I overfill it, the jeans are still damp on Friday.
- The dehumidifier sits right beside the airer and the lounge door to the hall stays shut, so the room gets warm and dry and the rest of the house doesn't take the damp.
- Nothing wet goes on the landing radiator or into the bedrooms. I used to drape things over the landing radiator and then wonder why the whole top floor smelled like a swimming pool changing room.
- After drop-off, two windows open at opposite ends of the house for ten minutes, with the heating still on. Rob thinks this is mad, and I have noticed that he doesn't stop me.
A Monday looks like this. The first load is set the night before to finish at half past six, so it's on the airer by ten to seven. The second goes in before I leave, set on a delay so it finishes around half past one, when Rob is back from the delivery office. He hangs it, with a method I've stopped commenting on. By the time I'm home, a little after three, the first load is bone dry and the second is still warm, and Tuesday's pile has to wait for the airer to empty.
What it costs
The dehumidifier was £149 in October. It's a 12-litre compressor one, and its tank holds a bit over three litres. In a damp week it fills twice a day, which is more water than I'd like to know the air was holding.
I haven't measured any of the running costs, only worked them out from the labels. The airer is 300W and runs about eight hours for a full load, which is 2.4 kWh and, at 27p a unit, 65p. The dehumidifier is 190W, so six hours is about 1.14 kWh, or 31p. We use the airer for roughly four loads a week and the dehumidifier for five sessions, so call it £4.15 a week, or a little under £18 a month. That's a label sum, not a reading. The smart meter display on the kitchen windowsill could tell me more, and I keep meaning to stand in front of it with a notebook.
What still goes wrong
The dehumidifier clicks itself off when the tank is full, and in a wet week that happens around four in the afternoon. I never know until I'm home to a lounge that has lost its hum and a basket of towels that is almost dry but not quite. It happened twice last week. Alfie shuts the lounge door when told, and he also leaves it open, sometimes within the same minute.
The coats are another thing. Four damp coats on the newel post make the hall smell like a wet dog, and we don't have a dog. Mabel treats the warm airer as her own personal radiator and has been asked to leave a sock behind.
I've started a window towel: an old tea towel that lives on the bedroom sill and goes in Saturday's wash. Rob says a squeegee would be quicker, and he is probably right, so it's on the list.
The windows this morning were misted rather than streaming, and the stegosaurus is long gone. I'll take that for a Wednesday in January.
