Loft condensation - a further question - open loft hatch from cold/ventilated room?

[busydad]

Hi all,

I am sure a few of us have this problem at this time of year. I have had condensation before but I must admit it is the worst it has been this year.

I have read all of the guides and general advice - one of which is to keep the loft hatch closed.

However as a temporary fix would it be beneficial to actually keep it open in my case? Reason being is that the hatch is in our spare room. I have therefore turned the radiator off and opened the window to the room and my thinking was that this would help to increase ventilation to the loft with hopefully cold/dry air (door to room closed also)? Or again will this make things worse?

Other than that we are opening windows when showering /cooking to to try and get as much moisture out of the house as possible. We do have an extractor in the bathroom but wondering if it is maybe 'leaking' in the roof, so have stopped using it and will go with the open window method.

I had a quick look up to try and see if the eaves were blocked - it is hard to tell and you cant get to them due to the layout of our loft.

 

[big-all]

the problem you have is warm air rises
until your room reaches the outside temperature to match the attic at which point your problem will ease
but keep in mind you will have heat leakage from other rooms into the attic and into your unheated room through walls and through the door if you have any gap under or around the door you will have a warm draught full off warm damp air 24 hours a day

 

[John D v2.0]

Problem is the felt is colder than the dew point of the air. The ventilation has to make sure the air in the loft has a dew point above that, mostly by diluting any warm air that might get through. And you should minimise that amount by sealing the ceiling well.
By opening the hatch, you're letting more air in and hoping the room air is cold enough to increase the dry ventilation without increasing the wet. I think if you're in the situation you have, really the only thing to do is improve the ventilation to outside. If there's none, it'll just collect up there.
Perhaps wedge something in the laps of the felt as a stop gap until you can take off a couple of rows of tiles and make some through ventilation
You can also get vent rules but they're not the cheapest or neatest way