Published: Wednesday 22 October 2025
Updated: Wednesday 22 October 2025
As we enter the colder winter months, many households face the challenge of preventing condensation, damp, and mould.
Preventing these issues before they take hold is crucial. The key to preventing damp and mould is reducing condensation levels in your home.
Condensation - the most common type of dampness, and is caused by warm, wet air (water vapour) making contact with a cold surface such as a window or wall. This contact turns the vapour into liquid due to the temperature drop. Meaning water is then formed on the cold surface and slowly soaks in, eventually causing damp. It is usually found in bathrooms, kitchens, the corners of rooms, on external facing walls and on or near windows.
To help you, we have put together our top tips for preventing condensation:
- Regularly check that your extractor fans are working, keep trickle vents in windows open, and allow air to circulate around the furniture.
- Keeping the kitchen or bathroom door closed and the extractor fan on when cooking, showering or bathing. You should leave the extractor fan on for 20 minutes after the activity as well to help extract the moisture from the air.
- When using an extractor fan, keep the windows in the room closed. If a window is open, the fan will draw air in from outside, rather than drawing the damp air out from the room.
- Make sure your curtains or blinds don’t cover the fan. Some fans switch on and off automatically according to the amount of moisture in the air. Do not turn these off at the power switch, as they are designed to work when they are needed. If you suspect that they are coming on more or less often than they should, please report this to us.
- Dry laundry outside. If this is not possible, keep in mind that drying clothes internally can generate large quantities of moisture. Therefore, if you need to dry clothes inside, restrict this to the bathroom or large kitchens with extractor fans and keep the room’s door shut so that the moisture does not spread to other rooms.
- Wipe down and dry water/condensation from surfaces such as windows/bathroom walls/worktops, to help prevent damp and mould.
- Cover pots and pans when cooking
- When bathing, run the cold water first and then run the hot water. This creates less steam.
Related content