Can air, completely closed, cause monoxide?

[BillBurns]

I have a tea pot on mine, doubt it helps, but I have it, why not use it? Its cast iron, on a trivet.

 

[Prometeo]

@Ashful

Thanks, great information, about humidifiers, I was completely ignorant on the subject.
Regarding humidity I followed you, and I was pleased to receive these confirmations, because I had framed the temperature discussion, the outside air must be heated and humidified, yes, I have to reconnect OAK as soon as possible! I also would have thought the stone would retain humidity but no, I imagine you have a crawl space at the base of your house,
however your very low RH percentages make me think of very high internal temperatures 😂
I found this graph, how much water can 1 cubic meter of air contain, can help understand how many liters give to the house;
Last night I kept a steel pot over the stove, at a corner (in the center it boiled) and almost everything evaporated, about 1 litres,
In my case it seems to have been good,
the meter jumped to 59 percent.

 

[Ashful]

Ahh opposite worlds. My dehumidifier is still running

We are in transition, now. The two dehumidifiers in the basement still occasionally kick on, a little less each week, they're set at 55% or 60%. But starting two days ago, I fired up the humidifiers on our upper floors, as we were running about 35% RH and I like to keep it 40% to 50%.

I also would have thought the stone would retain humidity but no, I imagine you have a crawl space at the base of your house,

We have a full basement with 8 ft (2.44 m) ceilings under the 1775 part of the house, in fact a third of that is the original 1734 house ground floor / kitchen. Then 6 ft (1.83 m) ceilings under the 1890's addition, and a 4 ft. crawl space under the 1990's addition. Dehumidifiers in each section.

however your very low RH percentages make me think of very high internal temperatures 😂

82F (28C) in my office, due to high-power computers and that being the location of one of the stoves, but more like 73F (23C) in the rest of the house. Obviously, the office couch is where everyone wants to pass out in front of the TV, tanning themselves just ten feet from the stove.

I found this graph, how much water can 1 cubic meter of air contain, can help understand how many liters give to the house

The trouble is the denominator... cubic meters. If you have a 6000 sq.ft. house with varied 7 to 14 ft ceilings, that's maybe 1500 cubic meters, or 15,000 liters of water at 23C for 50% RH.

More importantly, if the incoming air is 40% at -5C, then it contains 1.3 L/m3, and you're trying to pull it up to 50% at 23C, then you need to add almost 9 liters of water for each cubic meter of house air going up the flue. Good luck with a tea pot!

 

[Prometeo]

I have a tea pot on mine, doubt it helps, but I have it, why not use it? Its cast iron, on a trivet.

thanks for your contribution, I often see these tea pots, I've never used,
was trying to understand if it was something absolutely necessary, since I noticed dry throat, things like that, if it solves these things

 

[Prometeo]

@Ashful

It's very hot there! I planned a sofa, which I actually still have to buy, less than 3 meters from the stove, now I realize that it won't be useful for me, I don't really like excessive heat, unlike my wife. However, I think the calculations you made are wrong, reporting everything in meters, approximately, if you wanted to bring humidity to 60 percent (this is an example) you would need 3-4 litres humidified in addition to what you have in the air now. Your house has approximately 1800 cubic meters, 50 percent at 23 degrees, you have about 18 liters of water in the air, currently.
My house heated by this stove has only 200 cubic meters, 1 liter of water more in the air makes a lot of difference.

 

[Ashful]

@Ashful

It's very hot there! I planned a sofa, which I actually still have to buy, less than 3 meters from the stove, now I realize that it won't be useful for me, I don't really like excessive heat, unlike my wife. However, I think the calculations you made are wrong, reporting everything in meters, approximately, if you wanted to bring humidity to 60 percent (this is an example) you would need 3-4 litres humidified in addition to what you have in the air now. Your house has approximately 1800 cubic meters, 50 percent at 23 degrees, you have about 18 liters of water in the air, currently.
My house heated by this stove has only 200 cubic meters, 1 liter of water more in the air makes a lot of difference.

hah... I see it now. Grams! I was using 20.4 L/m3 saturation at 23C, but it's only 20.4 mL/m3! What's 1000x difference? lol...

Sorry about that. So it's 0.9 liters for every 100 m3 going up the stack, sounds more plausible.

But I am sure of the end effect, that being the introduction of ~1L per day right at the source of exhaust is no way to humidify a home. I know, because I've tried, as have several others here reporting similar results. You need to move the humidification away from the source of exhaust, preferably toward some known point of air ingress for those without an OAK.

 

[Prometeo]

Yes mL or grams 😁
are about 1 litre in 100cubic meters,
If the tea pot, has no restrictions, it has no lids, a lot of humidity will come out, if it has restrictions, a lid, much evaporation condenses and flows back into the container.
It's clear humidifier is better, if give the opportunity to set the desired percentage.
Condensation, must also be considered,
especially here ( house poorly insulated )
if there are cold spots, humidity will condense in those points, creating visible water and mold, and therefore it is necessary to consider it in the choice of desired humidity. This table has helped me in the past to combat condensation in my first home, very tight, by crossing temperature and humidity we can see at what temperature the humidity condenses on the external walls / windows.

 

[Ashful]

Condensation, must also be considered,
especially here ( house poorly insulated )
if there are cold spots, humidity will condense in those points, creating visible water and mold, and therefore it is necessary to consider it in the choice of desired humidity.

Yes. I have the same trouble, living in an old (for America) stone house with traditional windows. We can get a lot of condensation in and around windows, if we get too overzealous with our humidifier settings or placements. But most other American homes are newer, framed, and pretty well insulated by comparison to much of what I've seen while traveling in Italy.

 

[begreen]

I just got through redoing my son's old room now that he is on his own. We found black mold in places where he had left items for years up against the north outside wall. Tearing it down to the studs showed that there was no insulation until above the kneewall. This is now fixed.

The best solution in old homes other than fixing these issues is to keep things off and away from the outside walls a few inches to permit good air circulation.

 

[Prometeo]

I also had a bad experience with an external wall, the bedroom wardrobe, much of mold, behind,
may I add, if not isolated, worst combination, external wall wardrobe, and north side = disaster.
New apartment, no wardrobe in external walls, desk only

 

[Ashful]

What's real fun is when someone paints an old wall in latex, and then you get to watch moisture trying to push out of the wall cause the paint to bubble and delaminate. I was much fonder of "old houses" when I stuck to the 19th century, after the invention and common use of Portland cement. From a purely-American perspective, Victorians are grand, but true Colonials are just a PITA.

 

[Prometeo]

@Ashful

You saw right, however, cement also has two faces if the plaster is very greasy (rich cement) it will behave almost like a latex
plaster should have an ideal percentage for to breathe, and then obviously the exact paint, at least this I know, then it's clear Italian and American are totally different construction techniques.

 

[Ashful]

Portland cement wasn't used in USA construction until

@Ashful

You saw right, however, cement also has two faces if the plaster is very greasy (rich cement) it will behave almost like a latex
plaster should have an ideal percentage for to breathe, and then obviously the exact paint, at least this I know, then it's clear Italian and American are totally different construction techniques.

Yes, I suspect things were different. We were an agricultural society, scattered far and wide on farms often located some distance from cities and ports. Getting sufficient amounts of specialty materials like mason's lime from the closest lime kiln to these farms would have typically required multiple prohibitively-expensive journeys by ox cart in the 1700's. As a result, rather than using even the basic lime-based mortars available at that time as bedding mortar, they would often dig their own sandy clay (no Portland, no lime, no gypsum) on-site, and use that as bedding mortar. I suspect this type of bedding mortar transports a heck of a lot more water up through the wall than the lime-based mortar used in cities (or Italy) at that time, and way more water than the Portland mortars that would come along in the 1800's.

On top of that, long after Europe had transitioned from porous lime-based plasters to the Portland-based plasters you seem to be describing, America had no local manufacture of Portland cement. We were still using lime-based plasters for all but the most special houses, which might import Portland from England. I think there was almost a 100 year gap between Portland seeing common use in Europe, versus USA.

We've actually been pretty lucky with having many of our walls painted in latex, despite all of this, as we generally get enough evaporation off the outside face of the walls to keep the inside face from being damp. But some of the northeast-facing walls have caused us trouble, before prior owners found various ways to deal with it. I also see many more problems in other local houses of similar age, for various reasons, such as perhaps being in more shaded locations where exterior evaporation is more hindered.

 

[Prometeo]

@Ashful

Some say in old houses cracks may form where a cat passes through, but the house remains standing, new homes, a failure and everything can fall in an instant, the ancients had few at their disposal but they built with conscience, today, are all builders, some really don't know the technique of how the irons work in the concrete and innocents remain under the rubble.

 

[Ashful]

I think there were crap builders and crap houses back then, too. They're just not standing anymore! We have unfair admiration for the old houses still standing, because they're the few exceptionally good ones!

 

[Prometeo]

Unfair, I wouldn't say, mine is more than anything respect
for a bygone era, but remembered by those who lived it, happier than now, Despite, obviously there was very little in general.