Damp in Skegness holiday lets, chalets and caravans

Why holiday accommodation gets hit hardest

An occupied house dries itself a little every day: heating cycles, opened doors, moving air. A holiday let that closes at the end of October gets none of that for three or four months, on a coast where winter air is rarely far from saturated and the wind drives rain straight at seaward walls. Moisture that would evaporate out of a lived-in home instead sits in plaster, mattresses, curtains and cupboards, and mould has the whole off-season to work.

The result is the pattern every owner on this coast recognises: the place was fine at the last changeover, and by the first March visit there is black mould behind the headboards, a musty smell in the soft furnishings and lifting paint on the cold gable wall. The damp did not arrive in winter. The conditions for it did.

Which building you have decides who you call

Holiday accommodation here spans everything from a 1930s brick chalet to a caravan sited last spring, and they are not the same problem.

1. Static caravans and park homes Honestly: this is not a damp proofer's job. A static that smells damp usually has a floor or wall panel issue, a window or skylight seal, or plain shut-up condensation, and the right people are the park's own maintenance team or a caravan engineer. What helps meanwhile costs little: leave vents unblocked, stand mattresses and cushions on edge, use moisture traps, and drain down properly at closedown.
2. Brick chalets, holiday flats and converted boarding houses These are buildings, and building rules apply. Solid or early-cavity walls, old slate damp courses, seaward exposure and long unheated spells produce genuine rising damp, penetrating damp and heavy condensation. This is exactly what the vetted specialist this site introduces diagnoses and treats.
3. Bungalow lets and annexes The post-war bungalow stock that serves as year-round lets suffers most from condensation and cold-surface mould, and occasionally from failed damp courses. Diagnosis first: the treatments differ and so do the costs.

Closing down for winter without growing mould

Most of the March damage is decided in October. When you shut a brick-built let for the season: dry the building out with a final heated, ventilated week rather than locking it up damp after the last changeover; leave trickle vents open and internal doors ajar so air can move; pull furniture a hand's width off cold external walls; and if the building keeps mains power, low background heat or a dehumidifier on a humidistat is cheaper than a spring restoration. If the place already smells musty at closedown, that is the moment to get it looked at, not March.

Opening up again is covered from the village side on the Ingoldmells page, and the mechanics of shut-up moisture are explained under condensation and mould.

For owners and landlords

Where a let is someone's home rather than a holiday booking, damp and mould are a legal matter as well as a maintenance one, and instrument-backed evidence of cause protects you either way. A proper damp survey distinguishes tenant-lifestyle condensation from building defects, in writing. For holiday bookings the calculation is simpler: one diagnosed and fixed cause beats a decade of repainting over the same corner every spring.

Honest limits

The specialist this site introduces treats buildings: brick, block, timber-framed chalets on proper footings. Statics and park homes are excluded not because the problem is not real but because the remedy belongs to a different trade, and pretending otherwise would waste your money. If you are unsure which side of the line your property falls on, describe it in the enquiry and you will get a straight answer either way.