Old post but thought I'd update. We have finally moved into our forever home and on occasions, obviously in winter, we still have crying window (sob). We have the wet windows on the south side of the home which is the shady side so not unexpected but also on the north side where we still get lovely warm winter sunlight streaming in and I still do have all my windows slightly cracked open and it does help. Incidentally I have glass bricks in our bathroom on the south side and there is no condensation on this window at all. Our home has insulation in both the exterior and interior walls and we have double insulation in our roof, so factor 7 unlike the usual factor 3.5 not that it probably has any bearing on the moisture issue. We have a 1.8mtr wide veranda surrounding the entire home so the windows are some what protected from the elements but when the temperature gets fairly low and can be almost zero in winter, it seems impossible to prevent this crying window sindrome but I can live with the fact it is fairly easy and quick to remove with a Karcher window vac now, brilliant little machine at $99 and it only takes a few minutes. We have an exhaust fan in both bathrooms that is vented outside so the moist air does not go into the roof space and in fact even my rangehood ducting is vented outside too!! We even had condensation in the roof cavity as well to the point of having a rainforest up there but since fitting another whirlie into the roof making it three in total now, it appears to have almost entirely eradicated that problem. I can say catagorically now that crying windows are a very difficult problem to eradicate in very cold climates where obviously the inside of the home being heated at night is going to create the perfect conditions for the condensation to settle with the inside being far wamer than the outside and there in lies the problem which canot be changed. I have blinds and curtains that I close ever day before dark but it makes no difference. As I have aluminium windows and doors throughout, so no timber anywhere, it isn't such an issue for damage but annoying none the less but life goes on and I do so love my beautiful new home!!

I am well educated in sleep science & assess sleep as part of mental health assessments. Good on you Vy (2017) re CCI www. I usually find people want to tell me lots about their poor sleep. After I have learned about their mental, physical health & lifestyle I offer advice to improve their sleep IF they want to know. Mixed results. Why? It is rare that people want to address their lifestyle, not least alcohol use. Most assume there is a pill available. I am not a prescriber so I don't have to enter that discussion. Why am I writing about this in Houzz? Bedroom design. Bedrooms are only for sleep, intimacy changing your clothes. Thus keep them plain, simple & DARK. Stop making them full of all the light you can get (small windows please for ventilation & easily darkened at night). Bedrooms are not for entertainment including all forms of media (Yes sleep apps are great) & family parties. Blue light in the 60 mins before sleep reduces melatonin by 50% speeding up dementia, cancer depression, anxiety, etc . Huge rooms are a waste of money since they only for 8 hours of sleep, at night, in the dark. The best news of all: increase anti-carcinogen, & reduce dementia onset activities, that only happen at NIGHT, in the DARK when you are ASLEEP for 8 hours. Sorry shift workers. Learn about this.

@mlk01, You are right about the message button, I have it on my profile but no one else seems to so that's odd! If you click on my profile for example, you will see on the top line right beside the profile picture: Your house, Ideasbook, Bookmarks, Activities, Messages. In fact I remember that when anyone typed a reply like I'm doing now, you used to be able to click a "private" button, which meant only the person you were typing to saw your comment. Perhaps Houzz can answer these anomalies?? I'm not on Facebook or Twitter, never got into it and have no reason to do so anytime soon ha-ha As for talking privately to someone, you could post your email address here as could oklouise and delete it whilst you are still able to edit, as I've done once in the past. Just not sure how long the edit feature lasts.

we do as much of the demolition as possible including collecting all the rubbish and doing the tip runs so that workers arrive to a nice clean worksite, we usually sell or give away surplus goods on Gumtree (anyone want some old Velux roof windows?) and we found that careful salvage of old wiring and other scrap metal helps offset dumping costs BUT all this work takes time away from earning a living and looking after home and family so you have to weigh up the cost in time and money against the builders' demolition charges but i have to say some of our intentions have been disappointing as after carefully salvaging six 8mx 200mm x 50mm beams from our last reno our builder told us that they couldn't be reused in the new work without being chemically treated but, despite all the hard work we think demolition is fun and ripping out old plasterboard and tiles and concrete etc (after the asbestos removal has been done by professionals) is really great fun and dismantling buildings is a great way to help understand how they fit together