Rise in people reporting damp and mould in North East properties
A charity is worried it'll increase with the cost of living crisis
People across the North East and Teesside are being urged not to put their health and homes at risk by not putting the heating on if we can.
Groundwork in North East and Cumbria say they have seen a rise in people reporting damp and mould in properties, and there are fears the cost of living crisis will only keep that increasing.
Julia Bentley is an energy advisor with Green Doctor, an energy advice charity in the region, and she said: "The thing that we've seen increasingly most recently which we don't know exactly where it's come from is the conditions of houses, dampness is a bigger issue than we haven't had in the past. It could be a direct link from people not heating their homes adequately.
"Make sure that the energy you're using is going to benefit you, so where a lot of people if you've got a gas boiler, they'll not always use the time setting. We would normally be encouraging you to use that time setting, heat the house when you're in the property and if you're not in the property then you don't need to be heating it.
"We've seen it going up in the last couple of years increasingly. You'd probably know at least someone, if not yourself, would very much notice the difference in your energy prices and the pinch that's now causing on people's finances.
"What we would be saying is get to know your heating system. There are quite a few different types out there and all of them would be used in different ways to make them the most effective.
"Winter is always our busiest time anyway. Your heating's now gone on from a nice, warm summer. People might suddenly be actually realising the cost of energy when in the summer they maybe weren't as aware as the heating wasn't on."