We used to get condensation on our windows before our remodel. This was even after we'd replaced our windows with dual pane windows. Now, we don't anymore and I feel the reason is that we relocated our heating vents from the floor to the ceiling.

The problem is not only mold which can cause allergies, but that your drapes (esp. anything sheer) will stick to the wet window and get dirty over time.

Have you tried aiming the vents that are near the windows away from the windows? You can purchase shields to put on the floor vents to redirect the flow. I would definitely call the builder of this house. At that age, I would think there would be some type of warrantee on the construction.

Val - I'll have to check on the vent angel. I thought about calling my builder but wanted to check here first. I KNOW that he's going to say..."Ah, that's normal. Nothing to worry about. That's how it is. Blah blah." I was at the Anderson site and couldn't even find the 3001 series?? Only saw 200 and 400? It also says about a dehumidifier. I guess as long as mold isn't going to be a factor I could live with it. Looks somewhat goofy though. ALL the windows do it. Including the patio doors. They fog up. The other windows usually just look wet towards the bottom half.

I feel for you.

Our build was completed in November 07. We have double panes and condensation galore. Last winter, when it was really cold, the windows facing north and over the garage, had a half inch of ice on them for most of the day.

Idiot building site supervisor said that he, also, owned an "XYZ" built home and he used space heaters in the bedrooms. WHAT?!

I've researched this all over the place and found that you have to figure out the proper humidity to keep your home at.
That heavy drapes can exacerbate the problem instead of helping and a slew of other things that really don't give much of an overall cure to the dilemma. I think this is what happens when substandard builders cram a house full of windows (expensive to do) and then have to put in cheap ones to still make a profit.

We have the problem on all of our windows, not just the ones above the garage although those are the worst examples. If they were wood, they would have all been ruined by now.

And people wonder why I'm having a hard time embracing our new home. :)

Parma - Hmm this isn't very comforting to know you still have this problem!! I'm sorry you're going though this too!
I guess I should be glad they are vinyl. :)

This might sound stupid, but make sure they are really, tightly closed and locked. My son's bedroom was cold and there was condensation on the windows. Turned out he had opened them in the fall and closed them (as far as he was concerned). The locks make a much tighter seal.
Jo

Could the problem be with your furnace? Do you have a humidifier attached to it? I think if you do the humidifier can be adjusted. That could be a big cause of the condensation.

Does your pellet stove add a lot of moisture to the air?.. Our house tends towards dry and we don't get condensation but in our warmer moister bathroom we do if the door is left closed. .. I would suspect that your house is too moist, it's just science.. like condensation on a glass of ice tea. As far as I understand a dehumidifeir is your only recourse bedies leaving a window cracked open a bit. .. You know that you can have a dehumidifier hooked to your heating system so it's out of site?

Maddie

I agree with jojoco ~ If we don't use the locks on our double-paned windows, condensation forms on the window.

You need to find the sources of moisture and do whatever is necessary to minimize them.

When you shower/bathe, run the exhaust fan during and after for at least 15 minutes. Make sure your fans are vented to the outside NOT into attic space.

When you cook, use your exhaust fan, again, make sure it's vented to the outside and not just a recirculating type - they're worthless. You don't have to be boiling a pot of water to put moisture in the air - any cooking will do that and if you have a gas or propane stove, even more than electric.

Lastly, keep air circulating. Is your electric heat forced air or radient, baseboard....? If it's forced air, try keeping the fan set to on rather than auto. If you don't have forced air but have ceiling fans, use them and make sure your shades or curtains are open to allow the air to circulate. If you don't have ceiling fans, get box or oscilating fans - anything to keep the air moving. I know it's a pain and it's not purty ;-) but ya gotta do whatever it takes to eliminate the moisture. It has the potential for big problems, mold as mentioned, but also premature failure of any of the window parts or framing around them due to rotting wood. Even though you may not see it if those are clad windows, there's wood in the structure. I'm in Chicago and when it gets really cold here, we'll get condensation - can't get the inside humidity low enough to counter the cold window surface. That's when we run our ceiling fans and set up floor fans in other rooms. Sometimes practicatlity has to take precedence over vanity!

What are you doing to remove moisture from the house? Are your range and bathroom fans vented to the outside? Do you always use them?

I have Anderson as well, and we only get moisture after doing a lot of cooking or bathing.

You have electric heat in the northeast, in a new house? I didn't think they did that anymore, too expensive to operate. Anyway, if you have a pellet stove and electric only you don't have fans (like with a furnace which has air handlers, or a boiler with hydro-air) that can remove moisture from the entire house. Get a cheap humidity gauge at Home Depot and note how moist the house is when the condensation forms. Run a dehumidifier to get it down. Without whole house fans I don't see what else you can do. The house is new, so it's still drying out. It may get better with time.

I'll chime in with the others about controlling your humidity. You can purchase an inexpensive hygrometer (at Target, Amazon, etc.) to measure the RH and move it from room to room over the course of a day to see the differences. Because of allergies, we prefer to keep the RH in our home at or below 45%. I recently bought a 40 pint dehumidifier by Soleus that is the quietest we've ever had. So if you find that you do need a dehumidifier, I suggest you look at that one. They make a 25 pint as well, but there's little difference in the price and the 40 pint does a better job for us (we have both.)

Also, you mention that your home is only 7 mos. old. Every new house we've owned has been "wet" initially. Sometimes they have taken over a year to dry out. The concrete seems to take longer than the wood to reach a normal moisture level. We've always had to run a dehumidifier in a new house. Depending on the weather, it's been necessary for 6 - 15 months.

Others have mentioned range hoods & bathroom fans. Check to make sure that your builder vented them outside. We've found them vented into the attic in three houses. It doesn't seem to matter what the building code requires, builders often do whatever they and their fathers have done for decades and the local inspectors rarely catch things like that.

Good luck!

We had the same problem and was advised that our house was "sealed tightly", which is good in Sask winters LOL. With our renovation everything was upgraded to prevent heat loss and is doing a good job.
Our solution was to purchase a de-humidifier and it works fantastic!!! Along with the bathroom fan, which we were told is most likely the culprit, and cooking too.
We use them all and the problem has been solved....with no heat loss to boot : )
HTH

I'm confused (nothing new).

While I understand the link between humidity and condensation, here in the midwest, with our frigid winters, everyone has AprilAire humidifiers hooked up to their furnaces. The furnace runs so much, that if we didn't humidify our air, we would get shocks everytime we touch anything and our skin and furniture would dry out.

I've had them all my life and this is the first house I've had problems with condensation.

Writing this real quick...

DH has a tendency to forget to use the fans in the bathrooms at times when he showers or he'll turn them off right afterwards. I have a microwave hood combo over the stove. Pretty sure that's vented outside. I'm not sure about the bathroom fans. I don't remember seeing vents outside for them which probably means they are being pumped to the attic. Would the vents be out the side of the house? We have pipes sticking out through the roof but they would be coming from the attic... If this is the case how should I handle it? I know the answer would be talk to my builder but again, I know he's going to blow it off. We've had our share of trouble throughout the building process. Building code requires them to be vented outside? I'll have to purchase one of those hygrometers. Our heat is forced air? DH's friend installed that. There's a big unit outback of our house. There's floor registers and wall vents.... I guess it would have to be forced air since it's not baseboard. I never mess with the thermostat thing but I'll check and see what DH has it set to. It's probably auto. We do have a ceiling fan in our LR and master bedroom so I'll have to run those.

Thanks for all the responses. I'll reread over these later when I have more time. I'm at work right now.

We are having this problem in our bedrooms at night, and we're in the NE too. We have our original single-pane double-hung windows, but they are weatherstripped and airtight, so all our collective hot air while we're sleeping has nowhere to escape. (No storm windows yet, we're still shopping for those.) The condensation happens for us only the in the fall; the humidity is relatively high inside the house, and the temperature drops outside making the glass colder -- the recipe for condensation. Generally, as the winter progresses and the inside air gets still drier, even all our hot air doesn't raise the humidity enough to cause the condensation, so it is usually a short-lived problem. It seems to be dragging on longer this year, but I think it's because it's been so unseasonably cold outside. I keep forgetting to try turning on the ceiling fans in the bedrooms at night.

I have no suggestions, really, just commiserating. I'm surprised you're having this problem with double-glazed windows. I'm hoping storm windows solve the problem for us.

Yep it sounds like your home is real air tight. We have a van ee air exchanger. When it isn't working, we get a lot of condensation on the windows. Even when the furnace runs in the cooler months we would still have a condensation problem. I know this because I listened to a not so smart neighbour that swore up and down that I didn't need to have the van ee running in the winter months and that would solve my dry air problem. For those who aren't familiar with a Van ee, it simply exchanges fresh air for the inside air. When cooking and steaming up the windows it only takes a matter of minutes before the windows are cleared.

"DH has a tendency to forget to use the fans in the bathrooms at times when he showers or he'll turn them off right afterwards."

Have it set up on a timer. When he gets in he can hit "30 Min." and it will shut off automatically.

"I have a microwave hood combo over the stove."

You can tell if it's vented to the outside by looking on the exterior of the house. There will be a metal vent cover. Most are not vented to the outside, but they should be. Those micro-hoods don't work that great.

"I'm not sure about the bathroom fans."

The vents for those might be through the roof, or on an exterior wall. Do you have access to the attic? You can look for the piping in there and see where it goes. They MUST be vented outside. There will be other pipes on the roof (called stink pipes, for the toilets).

If you have grates in the floors you have either forced hot air (a furnace) or you have hydro-air (a boiler that uses the hot water to heat air). I don't know what the "big unit" outside would be with any type of heat. The only thing we have outside are the condensers for the AC. The boiler and air handler for the heat are in the basement, with another air handler in the attic for the second floor.

Since your DH's friend installed the heat, I'd call him and ask some questions. He probably will know what you need to do to fix this. Where I am bathroom vents must be vented to the outside, but it is something that builders frequently seem to skimp on.

The ceilings fans aren't going to do squat. I was talking about a whole house sytem, such as the air handlers, etc., that are part of the heating system with hydro-air or forced hot air. Heat and AC are usually set so the fan only runs when the heat and AC are blowing. You can also set it so they run all the time, just blowing room temp air (rather than warm or cold air). The issue with this is that in the winter the feeling of moving air will be perceived as cold. (when the air runs it goes through the air handler and removes moisture, but this is not an efficient way to dehumidify). It also burns electricity to do this and it doesn't fix the problem. You need to remove the moisture when it is created (bathroom, kitchen, etc.).

Do you have a basement? I would get a dehumifier and run it on the main floor now. Next summer you will need to run it in the basement.

We had terrible problems with this in our old house (single pane windows). Didn't notice it last winter in new house, but now that I have romans up I noticed it last week when it got really cold, esp. in MBR (too much heavy breathing LOL). RH is only around 40%, sometimes drops lower - we are shocking everything. About all you can do when it's super cold out and it's already that dry in the house is to make sure the windows are vinyl, or if wood that they've got a good coat of poly or spar varnish or paint on them, keep the blinds up/curtains open so air can circulate, or if you have to close them then mop them up with a towel every AM. Have you checked to see that there is insulation around the openings, caulk around the trim? Run fans in the bathroom, kitchen, and laundry room to vent any steam - even with the dryer vented outside it still got steamy in my laundry closet in the old house. Hopefully this will only be a problem when it's teens or below outside.

I did check the attic and there's a bunch of pipes in there that vent to the outside so that's a good thing. The microwave is vented outside as well. When we were building I didn't realize microwave/hood combo's weren't the best option. All I knew was that I didn't want it on the counters. Oops. :)
Ah yes, the unit outside is the central air. I had a duh moment earlier. The unit in the basement a Ruud heat pump. I have the manuals around here I'll dig them out in a bit.
Tonight the window are fine I'll also have to pay attention to when they get like that. I do have a dehumidifer in the basement that we run pretty much all the time. I may look into one for the upstairs. Rockmanor thanks for the tidbit on the Soleus brand. Good to know it's pretty quiet!

If you have condensation between the panes of glass (sometimes it just looks dirty/dusty between the panes, but in extreme cases it looks like an aquarium for really skinny fish) the seal is broken and you need to contact the mfr with a warranty claim. I live in So Cal where I have never seen condensation on the inside of the house so otherwise I can't help.

Andersen's Guide to Understanding Condensation (PDF document)

I would also encourage you to inspect your windows very closely to look for a subtle "striping" effect, or a haze in the corners almost as if frost had collected there that never goes away. If you see either of those things, it probably means your UV coating has failed, or the seal is broken (as i think someone else mentioned).

Even if you ARE under warranty, i can fully appreciate what a hassle this is to address.

As for condensation alone, i do deal with that also, though as far as i can tell, it's only on the exterior.

I really wish you luck with this! Keep us posted.

Bluekitobsessed -There's no condensation between the glass it's just on the interior.

Mona - Thank you for the link. I printed it out and read over it. My windows get that 1" wide strip of condensation around the bottom of the window. They mention the unit probably features metal components that are transmitting cold from the outside to the inner glass. They're saying this doesn't mean the window is leaking air or not working properly.

estreya - I will be sure to look for that striping effect/haze. That would be horrible if that's the case. I can't imagine them coming back into the house to replace the windows. What a nightmare!

Also read on the printout there are primarily three causes for temp window condensation
1. new construction - about how there's a great deal of moisture in the building materials. They say it usually disappears during the first heating season though.
2. heating season - at the beginning of the heating season. during the summer months your house can absorb some moisture. After first few weeks this should dissipate.
3. Preceding temp. shifts - sharp, quick drops in temp can also cause temp. condensation problems during the heating season.

Do you think the temp I'm keeping the house at should be upped or lowered? I guess this depends on other things though. Hmm... I'm really hoping this just goes away. I know people that live in really old houses that don't have this problem!

shesharee, did you have condensation this morning? I think this morning was the first that we didn't have it in a while. It was a little warmer outside last night.

People who live in really old houses typically don't have this problem because the water vapor, as well as the air they paid to heat, leaks right out the windows. :)

By any chance is the condensation noticeable after having your windows closed up with drawn curtains/drapes? If so this "could" be the problem. Moist air gets trapped between the material and the window itself and condensation forms.
This is a very common problem with otherwise good windows/ installation and normal moisture in a house.

cindyxeus - Our master bedroom is the only room with closed drapes. I'll have to check but it's happening with windows with only a valance too.

Sheeshare-
I have the same problem.
We moved into the new construction at the end of February last year. I noticed the problem back then.

We have gas, forced air heat. The humidifier NEVER turns on downstairs in the winter.Sometimes we get some condensation on all the windows. It's like an inch on the bottom. When I ran a humidifier for my sinus problem a couple of weeks ago, I had water running down my bedroom window!
I am waiting this winter out to see what happens.
I've been told that the house is tightly sealed. I even have insulation in interior walls of the master bedroom, on the first floor.

A heating person suggested to put in an AIR Exchanger. Me thinks it's too much money for a good one & to run it! I'll see where this goes next winter. I don't want a mold problem, so I'm willing to listen next year. I'm hoping the problem goes away. If you find out differently & what the remedy is, please share.

I installed a hydro air system in our 60 year old cape and insisted on a whole house humidifier even though many people told me it was unnecessary. We did get condensation on the windows when the humidifier ran, even set to the minimum. I've since turned the humidifier off and don't see any condensation. Some people believe that hydro air produces a more "wet air" due to air passing thru hot water pipes. Sounds good but not sure, ANY COMMENTS?