Hi :)
Is it normal for some wind to be blowing through a loft space on an old house at all? The house is an early 1900's terraced build.
I had it re-roofed about a decade ago, and the roofing company obviously bodged it a bit, resulting in a leak (or more than one). But i also keep getting a nasty smell in the attic bedroom that I'm told could be black mold.
The smell appears every time it's rainy and/or windy. It also appears whenever the radiator is on. The wind in the loft space (a small area above the attic bedroom accessible via a hatch. It's only big enough to fit head and shoulders through) is coming from the direction of the dormer window, where the leak appeared previously, by showing up on the ceiling of the room below, and the radiator is directly below the dormer on the inside. The leak was never visible in the attic bedroom.
I recently had another roofing company in to do some repairs and updates, and they checked the area fairly extensively, and found two holes left by the previous company, which were fixed. But the smell still keep returning after rain and wind, and the wind is still there in the loft space, although nowhere near as bad as before.
The inside was re-plasted a few years back too, and there was some mold on the old plaster, from when the roof had had a big leak in it (before my time in the house. The roof had been fixed, but they never sorted out the room, which the previous owner didn't use). When the old plaster was ripped off, a lot of it just turned to dust and fell down between the floorboards. There could be a possibility here that the mold smell isn't actually wet, but what's in there already getting stirred up?
I'm extremely frustrated that after all the expense of having the roofers search for holes, that the smell is still there. But I am not sure of the actual proceedure for doing roofing work. There is a vent fitted in the place of an old tile, maybe that's letting the air blow through?
There is no mold, damp or leaks present in either the attic bedroom or the loft space area. At the front and back of the attic bedroom are inaccessibe 'voids', and the problem would be at one of these, by the attic's dormer window somewhere b the looks of it, and the wind is blowing up through the space behind the plasterboard into the loft area. The smell would be going through the floor in the voids, and then the smell is wafting along and up through the floorboards. I think tha when it happens when the radiator is on is actually more down to the pipes in the floor than the radiator itself. There does not appear to be any mold or damp on the radiator itself or the plasterboard behind it (directly below the window).
Any help appreciated.
