New home. First heating season. Frame a hybrid of log timbers and 2x stick walls. Second floor framing all heavy exposed log joists on 32″ centers, with 2×6 t&g decking atop. Entire lower walkout level finished from rough just before winter set in. The log timbers are still drying out, and there are tons of them. A lot of other stuff is experiencing its first dry out, also.
It’s a weekend home, staple-up hydronic heats the main floor, and electric baseboards heat the walkout level and up-top level. Up top, in a laundry room, the Sears guy didn’t connect the vent hose up, so the dryer was used, unvented, all fall and first half of the winter.
With t-stats all set to maybe 58, along comes a really deep chill. Really deep. Since just after new year, we have had many nights at 20 below and deeper.
Homeowner comes up from the NYC metroplex area and in deep cold, temps still down at -18, -21, you name it, finds frosting going on.
All the windows have a u-shaped pattern of frost on the lower panes of glass. Frost is on some windowsills. Exterior doors have frost on the insides where the hinges are doing thermal bridging. There are some small areas of frost on drywall, in corners near where log columns adjoin, and above some baseboard.
What’s going on? The house was carefully insulated, with urethane foam used in a cathedral ceiling, and used elsewhere where things looked critical. Dense-pac cellulose used everywhere else.
Is this a case of too tight, not enough venting for the moisture, and the extreme cold making things frost up?
Replies
Areas of the house have reached the dew point.
A 75 degree house with a humidity of 45% when cooled to 52 degrees reaches 100% humidity. Any areas less then 52 degrees will condense water. Since it's freezing (frost) you have a temperature problem. If water freezes it ain't 58 degrees inside...gaurenteed.
My family home in Montreal gets frost on picture hooks in the walls on those days when it has been -30 for a week or so. The pictures keep air circulation away. You said it, thermal bridging. How warm do keep the place when you are not there?
Turn the heat up. It's set at 58 but I bet it's not that warm in there with the out side temps where they are.
Micro, I visit LP often and in the winter too.........damn it's cold up there.
Any chance you know John Dimon? He runs a small skate shop just south of the oval.
Stay warm,
Eric
Gee.... water freezing at 58 degrees.
Once again this ain't rocket science..... Either it's not 58 degrees or you have broken all kinds of physical laws and need wayyyyy more help then you're gonna get here.
Good luck on figuring this complex problem out. ;-)
Having frost in the areas you mention, leads me to believe you have an cold air leak in those areas, which attract the humid moist air from the new home drying out, which is what causes the frost to form.Bay Shore Building & Design. Inc.
Residential Building & Computer Aided Design Services
http://bsbad.tripod.com
Dude I don't have cold air leakage it's Mr Mico.
And as for cold air "attacting" warm air I'm all for the theory. It's cold as all get out here and I'm looking to attract some warm air...how does it work?
Some more detail.
There are high end Pella outswing doors going to porches. Doubles. Frost evident on the inside face of door stile and adjacent jamb, but exactly where the hinges are on these 8/0 doors. Remember, the doors swing out, thus the hinge knuckles are to the weather. Really frigid weather.
The doors have astragals, and on the inside face of these, but only where there are screws fastening the astragals to the passive leaves, frost spots.
This plus the aforementioned frost on a few small patches of exterior-wall sheetrock, plus frost along the bottom edge of all window and door sashes.
T-stats all set to upper 50s, outside air way way way below zero, 10 to 20 mph breezes. It obviously ain't 50-something where the frost is occurring. Most all the window sills are cold enough for your fingers to freeze onto them.
It's been colder here than almost anyplace on earth for the past week or more. Is this normal in very extreme cold, for a new house with minimal heat operating, and so many tons of new green wood (the log framing) drying out?
Yers it's normal. For the last three weeks, this is the most asked questioin here and on all the construction and HO related forums. I was in the window guys office the other day and he fielded two calls while I was there from people asking the same Q. You've got moisture hitting cold surfaces. What else could happen?.
Excellence is its own reward!
"You've got moisture hitting cold surfaces. What else could happen?"
Maybe we should put you up for a Noble prize in physics for that discovey.
FWIW, I agree with Piffin. From what you revealed, I don't see anything surprising.
"Up top, in a laundry room, the Sears guy didn't connect the vent hose up, so the dryer was used unvented, all fall and first half of the winter."
God bless the Sears guy. Doh!
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Just a boost here to bump it up to new again. In the deep deep cold we had (I hope it is over now), what kinds of frost-up occurrences did you have in your houses?
My post that began this thread was done on behalf of a friend that built this high-end great-camp-rustic thing for a client, an attorney from NJ. The client, who arrived at his weekend home, heated to just maintenance level, when it was 25 below and howling outside, is claiming the frosting seen here and there is due to substandard construction techniques used by my colleague.
I did not see it myself. I have described it as it has been described to me. I can report this, though. Even during the deep cold, when the house warmed up to live-in temps after the t-stats were moved up from their low settings, most if not all the frosting went away.
Is this attorney guy the one who wouldn't pay his bill at the end?
Is this still going on for a diversionary tactic? Maybe your friend needs Joe Lisitburek from Building science for a consult. You can also find more on this in the JLC forums.
Again, it is typical - especially for a first year house when things are still drying out..
Excellence is its own reward!
Re the payment, and "is this the same guy," the answer is, yep. Everything is paid in full now, though. The pitch that is being thrown now is a "substandard quality . . . you fix it or I might sue."
And as we all know, lawyers can make their own waves for free, but the poor recipients of the flack, need to pay by the hour for their defense.
Then a little research such as you are doing will let you tactfully place the knowledge in his mind of how rediculous he will appear in court with claims like this.
The uncoupled dryer vent was indeed substandard though. It didn't cause this trouble, but it didn't help either..
Excellence is its own reward!
And as we all know, lawyers can make their own waves for free, but the poor recipients of the flack, need to pay by the hour for their defense.
How 'bout we all come up there and give this guy a good scare?
I'd tell him that he simply has to keep the heat up higher. I can't imagine what the enviroment is like in a house not lived in.
Ask this guy to show you several like dwellings that have not developed like symptoms under similiar conditions. I'll bet it would be easier to find many that have similiar symptoms under the weather conditions present. Man; it down right friggin brutal up there!!
Good luck. Best way to deal with these guys is displaying an air of confidence as to the solution and minimizing contact. Let him cry.
Eric
Have him spend $10 for digital humidity gauge.
They based run the psychormetric calculations.
http://www.linric.com/webpsy.htm
Enter the DB (dry point, room temp). For the second entry select RH (realative humidity). Then calculate. On the output look at DP (dewpoint). That is where the moiture in the air will start condenating and freezing if below 32.
Now with the house being maintained at low temps the surface on the exterior walls will be that much lower.
And logs are green green, while some construction lumber is semi dried and the smaller dimension the construction lumber will dry out much sooner. And the total amount of wood in log structure is much higher than a stick framed house.
If it is bad enough then they need some dehumidiers. Some will work at the low temperatures.
We run a humidifier on the forced air so RH levels aren't desert-like. -20 or lower + frosting around keyhole on entrance doors, near hinges if wind is really howling and anywhere arund those doors that the weatherseal isn't quite perfectly tight.
I'm getting the notion that you have a problem on your hands and it isn't the frost.....it's the complainer.....whether that occuurence is from lack of knowledge which leads to unrealistic expectations, desire to stiff you for some $$$ or just because he wants to look somehow superior in his own eyes........maybe some of all of those.
How to handle it is a good question, but I'd only want to deal with it once. Then that person and I would part company and never would I agree to do anything more for said client. Life's too short to embrace more problems than a guy has to.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Everything metal in or on the exterior walls is ating as a cold sink. The house is too cold.
This guy is fighting thermal mass and mother nature and because he can't win he figures you're the little man in the crowd.
Make him crank up the heat and put in dehumidification.
Let him know that the lack of willingness to listen to reason does not constitute validation of finger pointing or passing the buck.
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
Eat more beans.
Joe H
Micro. All heat is radiant? No air movement will allow condensation to collect on the bottom of the sash, freezing you bet at night or in extreme cold with the heat on at living level. The sun will usually melt it, air movement will certainly evaporate it. This comes still to older radiant heated houses with lots of plants and/or less than adequate air changes/exhaust. Good luck.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time