Never faced with such a problem as condensation on the front door, only residents of apartment buildings and people who were lucky with the quality of installation, the device itself door leaf, and at the same time and the design of the house. And as you thought: there are a lot of factors that need to be taken into account to solve the problem, so in search of a condensate source we will have to inspect and analyze the structure on several fronts.
Why does it fog up and why is it dangerous?
Condensate on the entrance metal door, and not only, is formed due to the difference in surface and air temperatures. The same phenomenon can be observed on an aluminum can from the refrigerator or on the windows during the cold season. When the air in the room is relatively warm and the surface is colder, at certain indications of air temperature and humidity it reaches the dew point temperature when the vapor from the air passes into the shape of the liquid and collects on this very surface.
For example, at a temperature in the dressing room at 21 ° C and a humidity of 50%, the dew point for the door surface is 10.2 degrees. Given the high heat, and in our case, the cold conductivity of the metal, at a low temperature on the street, the door in the private house will be stably covered with condensate.
Dew or even frost on the inside of the entrance door does not add to the comfort of the situation, but the most unpleasant thing is that the iron doors are fogging not only from the outside, but also from the inside, which can lead to a rapid failure of the structure. Buying an entrance door, everyone wants to get high quality at a reasonable price, but if you decide to save and buy a system without an internal anti-corrosion treatment in a country house, be prepared for the fact that it will not serve for long. If, of course, you do not solve the problem of misting before the liner rusts.
The advice of
The main thing is to understand why the door sweats, and to reveal the weak side of the box, linen or room bordering it.
How to determine the cause of fogging and what to do?
By and large, the only reason is the aforementioned temperature difference. But it can arise because of several factors.
- Cloth poorly insulated
Basically, the entrance doors are sweating due to poor insulation. If you bought a canvas without quality insulation, ways to remedy the situation - try to insulate it yourself or change the canvas. Cavities in the canvas can be filled with mounting foam, but it is better to think about the quality layer of the insulation inside the door before buying.
- Box is poorly insulated
In this case, the condensate can form not only on the box itself, but also on the canvas along the perimeter of contact with it. You can heat it with all the same foam, mineral wool or foam, and since you still have to dismantle the box for this, check if the doorway is sufficiently covered with a good quality. If there were cavities between him and the box, the reason for the fogging could be covered in them, and it is necessary to blame not the manufacturers, but the installers.
Advice
In addition to the insulation of the box and the canvas, it is possible to insulate the slopes also from the outside, if the external facade decoration allows.
- Sealing failure
The door can become covered with condensate if there is a leak between the liner and the box, which can be easily checked by the presence of drafts. In this case, the dew will accumulate mainly along the perimeter of the canvas and the box. Eliminate the problem in this case will help the usual self-adhesive rubber sealant, which must be attached to the box and the canvas along the perimeter.
Important!
If a metal door is cheap and trimmed with decorative panels, it's not a fact that the manufacturers have properly carried out the anticorrosion treatment of the metal beneath them. If the panels are badly attached and there are voids between them and the metal, then the door will begin to sweat under the panels, and you will only know about it when it fails.
- Cold bridges
Another reason why the front door sweats, even with good insulation, is the cold bridges that exist in almost all the doors. Cold bridges are through metal elements, like a lock or stiffeners, which are not separated by thermal insulation or at least emptiness and perfectly conduct the cold on the inner surface of the blade. Even with the cavitation in the canvas, local sweating can be avoided in the area of such a bridge only by the following method.
board Sometimes cold bridges can not be avoided: usually it's a lock and an eye, and that's enough. But in the case of a lock, you can at least use a retractable overlay or choose models with vertical crossbars.
- The room is too cold
Sometimes the front door leads directly into the corridor, but most often there is a tambour in the house. Unheated tambour, in which the air is warmer than on the street, the cold with which lowers the temperature of the internal surface due to the above reasons. What if the entrance metal door sweats in this case? Try to slightly level the temperature of the inner surface of the cloth and air in the tambour with heating. The smaller the gap of these indicators, the higher the humidity required for dew. If you heat the air to 24 degrees, then at an average humidity of 50-60%, the internal surface needs to be heated up to 14-16 degrees, which is easy to achieve due to thermal insulation, airtightness and, most importantly, warm air. But if in the waiting room it will be 15 degrees, then at the same humidity the dew on the entrance doors will drop already at 4-7 degrees, and the temperature of the metal canvas without heating in the frost will be much lower.
Board
If the vestibule is not provided, the condensation can be removed by isolating the inner surface of the metal door from the warmer air with a wooden door. The wooden door should be installed immediately after the metal door.
- The room is too humid
It's a shame, but the canvas can fog up even in a heated tambour: remember, the higher the humidity, the less difference in surface and air temperatures is required for the surface to become wet. For example, at 80% humidity and air temperature of 24 degrees, the dew drops out at a surface temperature of 20.3.That is, it is very warm and humid - worse than moderately warm and dry. Of course, sweaty doors will not be a problem for you if you buy expensive models with thermal breaks of cold bridges, box heating, weather resistant surface treatment or a liquid insulation that seals metal from the air. But it is not necessary to clean this unpleasant phenomenon even with accessible doors, if you take care of quality insulation and maximum tightness, as well as a little understanding of the table of humidity and air temperature for the dew point.
