On Nov 11, 9:49*pm, RJ_32 wrote:
Don Phillipson wrote:
"RJ_32" wrote in ...

aside from the obvious of water pipes freezing, can cold damage a house? I
don't know what might occur, wallpaper peeling or plaster cracking or
whatever.

It is not low temperature that damages houses, it is damp (moisture.)
Damp varies with humidity, i.e. at low temperatures water vapor
changes from a gas into a liquid (droplets or ice.)

If damage can occur, at what temperature would it occur? If I keep am
unused
bedroom closed up for the winter with the radiator turned off, can
anything
bad result?

1. *Probably not.
2. *But you can open the door and look (and sniff too) every two weeks.

interesting replies, my thanks to everybody. And that's exactly what I'll do:
periodically check.

It seems that the cooler the rest of the house is kept, then the drier the
unheated room might be.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If you humidify the rest of the house using a central humidifier or a
room humidifier, then as that level of moisture goes through the walls
into the unheated room, and then maybe condenses on the even colder
outside wall, you may have problems. If there was a moisture barrier
betwen the heated and unheated part of the house, this would be much
less likely to be a problem. Otherwise, I would keep the unheated
room at least at 50F, my experience in the Chicago area at least says
that that seems to not be a problem.

Bob Hofmann