How did British people cope with damp/mould without central heating in the past?
score:12
The answer has not much to do with history, but needs deep-diving into structural engineering and interstitial condensation. The shortest and over-simplified version might be this from the Wikipedia article about humidity:
Common construction methods often produce building enclosures with a poor thermal boundary, requiring an insulation and air barrier system designed to retain indoor environmental conditions while resisting external environmental conditions. The energy-efficient, heavily sealed architecture introduced in the 20th century also sealed off the movement of moisture, and this has resulted in a secondary problem of condensation forming in and around walls, which encourages the development of mold and mildew.
In other words: older building materials were worse at insulating the buildings, but better at preventing wetness building up within the walls.
Upvote:0
Open fires send a lot of hot air, their own fumes, and moisture up the chimney, and draw in cold air to replace it. The both need and provide ventilation, and that helps to some extent with damp. Condensation was still a problem.
By the late 20th century fireplaces might well have been occupied/replaced by gas fires. Unlike many modern gas fires they weren't room sealed* (i.e. you could actually touch the flames if you were stupid enough). Some vented up the old chimney, some smaller ones had no flue at all, so created moisture in the room. Air from outside was necessary whether there was a flue or not, through vents of some form, such as air bricks in the walls. My grandparents' house (Victorian) was like this is in the 1990s, with solid walls and single glazing. The windows had a lot of condensation on them in winter, but not the walls. Some of the windows in that house were louvred, and others sash; the former in particular could never be made to seal.
These fires could be fitted until surprisingly recently; I know of a house that has one in addition to gas central heating, complete with vents and chimney, and that was built about 25 years ago.
As a further intermediate step. some gas fires had a "back boiler" to heat water or even run central heating; in those cases the gas fire sat on the old hearth, with the boiler in the bottom of the chimney. I lived in a (30s-built) house in '99-02 which had hot water and rudimentary central heating done this way. That was the dampest house I've ever lived in, but also the mostly densely occupied; it struggled with condensation on the upstairs outside walls, leading to mould on things touching them long term.
* Many modern gas fires draw air through a flue in the outside wall behind them, and have a concentric exhaust. They have glass between the flames and the room, sealed to the metal housing.
Upvote:1
Update:
There's currently a slum-housing scandal in the UK due to the inquest into death of two year old Awaab Ishak:
Awaab died in December 2020 as a result of a severe respiratory condition. In 2022, a coroner at Rochdale coroner's court ruled that this was caused by prolonged exposure to toxic black mould in his home which had "inadequate ventilation and was not equipped for normal day-to-day living activities which led to excess damp and condensation"
(A late addition, and not a historical event but I thought it would provide some context.)
Original answer:
Damp was a major problem for the UK housing stock in use during the twentieth century:
House in Thomas Street. Back to back, two up, one down (i.e. a three-storey house with one room on each storey). Cellar below. Living-room 14 ft. by 10 ft., and rooms above corresponding. Sink in living-room. Top floor has no door but gives on open stairs. Walls in living-room slightly damp, walls in top rooms coming to pieces and oozing damp on all sides.
George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier (first published 1937)
There was a huge expansion in house building during the nineteenth century driven by the need to house workers during the industrial revolution. Construction was often cheap, quick and to poor standards which resulted in damp, mould, insect infestation (cf. The Road to Wigan Pier) and poor sanitation. Many of these buildings continued to be used, unimproved, well into the twentieth century. The lack of regulation was first addressed by the Public Health Acts of 1875 and 1878, and 1878 Building Act.
From the 1890s on, large scale slum clearance has been undertaken in an attempt to replace poor housing with new development, however improvements in accommodation often came at a cost of damage to communities.
It would be a mistake to assume that damp and mould are historical problems that are no-longer found in UK housing:
Tenants of one of England’s largest housing groups say they have been left for years in ‘uninhabitable’ homes as experts warn social renters could be left with long-term health conditions as a result of damp and mouldy properties.
And also:
As a nation, Britain has a big problem with damp, it can not only cause damage to your home but if left for a long period of time, it can also cause problems to your health as well. According to Shelter, there are 1 in 5 renters who are affected by damp and mould in Britain. So why are mould and damp problems so common in British homes?
More post
- 📝 What German torpedo problem was discovered in 1942?
- 📝 Why is Jiagedaqi part of Heilongjiang despite being inside Inner Mongolia?
- 📝 What's the reason behind the 17th century tradition of British monarchs being depicted on coins facing in the opposite direction to their predecessor?
- 📝 What coin/pendant is this and is it worth any money?
- 📝 What does Tuchman mean by transition to a "money economy" in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Antisemitism in Nazi Germany
- 📝 Who was the last person "Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered" under British jurisdiction?
- 📝 Did American leaders give any serious consideration to proceeding with Nixon's impeachment and trial after he resigned?
- 📝 Public knowledge of hypothetical nuclear weapons before Hiroshima?
- 📝 What role did the Ancient Samurai heritage play on Modern Japan during WW2?
- 📝 What is the purpose of this Roman siege tactic as shown in this Illustration?
- 📝 Why didn't invaders of India ever cross into Myanmar and beyond (east)?
- 📝 Who was the first American born citizen to become President?
- 📝 What do historians do when there are no sources?
- 📝 How were cities administered in the early Byzantine Empire?
- 📝 Did Erwin König Exist?
- 📝 How did a scientist who came from China in 1935 become a US Army Colonel by 1945?
- 📝 Were there witch-hunts or witch-trials in China or Japan?
- 📝 Were debts owed or outstanding debts factored into the Roman census?
- 📝 Why was the Ottoman flag changed from an eight-pointed star to five-pointed in the 19th century?
- 📝 Why did the line infantry not use shields in the 18th century?
- 📝 What hard, physical evidence is there that Davy Crockett actually died at the Alamo?
- 📝 Why do Wikipedia's and Guinness World Records's measurements of the Achaemenid Empire's percentage of world population differ?
- 📝 What impact did Trotsky's armoured train have on the Russian civil war?
- 📝 Were the societies envisioned in the Dharmasastras ever reflective of reality?
- 📝 What was the primary reason for the rise and success of the Roman republic / empire?
- 📝 Why does Edinburgh Castle's one o'clock gun fire at 1pm instead of, say, noon?
- 📝 If the prices for cotton increased during the Industrial Revolution, how would the increase affect the market for farm land?
- 📝 Is strategic bombing as ineffective as this math suggests?
- 📝 What does "APT" mean in box 34 of the WD AGO 53-55?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How did British people cope with damp/mould without central heating in the past?
- 📝 How did people deal with ice on the roads during the horse-and-buggy era?
- 📝 How did 300,000 people survive the 3 1/2 year siege of Sarajevo?
- 📝 How did the ancient Romans count with their fingers?
- 📝 How did people react to Cavendish bananas when they first replaced the Gros Michel strain?
- 📝 How did the British Navy pass orders to its fleet before radio?
- 📝 How did people have access to ice in warm areas before the industrial revolution?
- 📝 How did people in the desert stay cool in the past?
- 📝 How did Napoleon evade the British fleet and return to France?
- 📝 If salt was scarce and expensive, how did people "salt the earth" to ensure their enemies would stay defeated?
- 📝 How did people say “I have to go to the bathroom” before the bathroom and pipes were common?
- 📝 How did people dress at the Jesuit missions to the Hurons?
- 📝 How did the British keep Enigma 'snatches' secret?
- 📝 How much tax revenue did the British Empire receive from its colonies in a given year?
- 📝 Did more Jews live in Poland than any other country, prior to the Holocaust, because of how Polish laws and people regarded Jews?
- 📝 How did the elite maintain the status quo throughout the British Colonies of North America?
- 📝 How did Egypt become a protectorate of the British empire?
- 📝 How did the Egyptian engineers of the Third and Fourth Dynasty construct the Pyramids and Sphinx without modern science and mathematics?
- 📝 How much contact did Sub-Saharan Africa actually have with the rest of the world since the beginning of civilization?
- 📝 How did people apply for university in the 18th century?
- 📝 How did the Falasha make contact with Jews outside Ethiopia?
- 📝 How did the way commanders ask their troops to deal with the immediate death of their comrades vary by country/culture during WWII?
- 📝 During the U.S. Prohibition, how did they get away with drinking alcohol?
- 📝 How did people cut their nails in the past?
- 📝 How did the central government of the United States finance itself under the Articles of Confederation?
- 📝 How strong a land force did Germany need for a conquest of the British Isles in the summer of 1940?
- 📝 How did the Swedish army deal with prisoners of war in the Thirty Years War?
- 📝 How did the US "Greek" fraternity system at universities arise and what is its relationship with ancient Greece?
- 📝 How did the people of Massachusetts react to the territory that is now Maine being split off from Massachusetts?
- 📝 How did the British Army unit size and structure in WWI change from 1915 to 1918?