Airtightness vs bugs

[puntloos]

Was always wondering - if you have an airtight house, passivhaus or something close to it, what's the status of bugs in the house? Is the amount of spiders, moths etc etc the same as in a normal house, because once they're in they just lay eggs and stick around, or does the airtightness meaningfully decrease unwelcome extra inhabitants?

[joth]

Less bugs by far, for us.

We have fruit flies around the chilli plants, and occasional ant invasion, but otherwise bigger bugs (spiders and flies etc) can't get in, or die off quickly if they do as there's nothing to breed and feed off. 

YMMV

 

[nod]

1 hour ago, joth said:

Less bugs by far, for us.

We have fruit flies around the chilli plants, and occasional ant invasion, but otherwise bigger bugs (spiders and flies etc) can't get in, or die off quickly if they do as there's nothing to breed and feed off. 

YMMV

 

Unless you leave a door or windows open 😂

[ProDave]

Definitely less spiders etc, they only ever get in when a window is open.

 

But the big one for me is NO MICE.

 

Every house I have lived i before, with the usual air bricks and other means of ventilating cold roof spaces and cold floor voids has allowed mice to get in. particularly into a cold loft space.  It was just something you accepted and dealt with with traps or poison.  But the new air tight house with a warm roof has not had a single mouse in it ever.  That is a way better result than fewer spiders.

[Roundtuit]

Yep, less bugs.  As above, the only ones that get in are the ones you let in when doors and windows are open, and they don't last long.  We let the occasional spider in when opening the bi-folds or French doors, but I think the internal environment is too dry for them to last more than a couple of days.

[Russdl]

+1 to the mice issue. Always had the tenacious little ba$tards in previous houses, they’ll never get in here. 
 

Spiders and flies get in when a door is left open, spiders are humanly caught and released to the wild to continue their job of work on the outside. As for the flies, it’s chemical warfare for them.  

[JohnMo]

We get a few insects in through open windows and doors.  I know we have mice in the woods, I'm hoping they don't find the open doors.

[Russdl]

We had a fair few fly’s in yesterday, the sliders were open most of the day. I wonder if there is a ‘perfect storm’ for flies? We’ve just seen this on our cladding (zoom in, there’s lots there). Most of them are on the west facing cladding which hasn’t warmed up much yet. Any idea what’s going on?

 

[Ralph]

20 minutes ago, Russdl said:

We had a fair few fly’s in yesterday, the sliders were open most of the day. I wonder if there is a ‘perfect storm’ for flies? We’ve just seen this on our cladding (zoom in, there’s lots there). Most of them are on the west facing cladding which hasn’t warmed up much yet. Any idea what’s going on?

We also have black cladding and it really seems to attract them. Being in the middle of trees and with a stream insects is a problem for as when we leave the sliders open, which I do all the time.

[Radian]

2 hours ago, Russdl said:

We had a fair few fly’s in yesterday, the sliders were open most of the day. I wonder if there is a ‘perfect storm’ for flies? We’ve just seen this on our cladding (zoom in, there’s lots there). Most of them are on the west facing cladding which hasn’t warmed up much yet. Any idea what’s going on?

 

Have a search here and elsewhere for "cluster flies". They're looking for somewhere to over-winter and seem to understand that houses have warm spaces. Seriously.

[ProDave]

6 minutes ago, Radian said:

Have a search here and elsewhere for "cluster flies". They're looking for somewhere to over-winter and seem to understand that houses have warm spaces. Seriously.

Yes, they have worked out they can get through the first outer seal on our windows but no further.  So if you open a window in winter chances are a load of dozy sleeping cluster flies will fall out.

[Russdl]

45 minutes ago, Radian said:

Have a search here and elsewhere for "cluster flies".

 

37 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Yes, they have worked out they can get through the first outer seal on our windows but no further.

Ah yes. Thanks for the reminder. I do remember stuff about that now. 
 

They are squeezing between the WPC cladding and the zinc cladding but I’m quietly confident they won’t get any further as I still bare the scars of the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ from installing the acres of insect mesh, but I shall keep a beady eye on the little fockers. 

[Iceverge]

Plenty of window opening here for us so we get some creepy crawlies. 

 

Flies,I think they're cluster, seem to bash against the glass of closed windows until they die. Otherwise they get trapped inside the first seal of the window. Vacuum cleaner takes care of them. Happily bees and butterflies seem to be better at finding their way out again. 

 

I've never seen any moths, earwigs or woodlice. The spiders have come in the doors mostly I think. Don't mind them really, they're good tenants, don't bother with our food. Don't make annoying noises and help take care of other pests. 

 

Give it another month when all the doors and windows will be closed and there'll be nothing really.

 

Theres no nice warm and moist areas for them to live. The usual cracks and holes where the heat of inside and dampness of outside meet don't exist. 

 

The stable dry and warm environment even in inaccessible areas just doesn't suit little creatures I think.