I'm learning that despite living in a very dry climate, due to our extreme cold, there tends to be a lot of condensation that occurs. Especially when you live in a very well insulated house with very little square footage therefore little air movement. And when water condenses onto wood consistently, keeping it always a little damp, you very quickly get mold.
I've now developed mold around almost all my windows. Even in this little place, I have 15 separate windows so there is a lot of space for this to occur. And on the thinner panel in the door. And along the baseboards in places where any item of furniture blocks the totally open flow of air.
The moisture come mostly from cooking in my case. With the propane heat and human breath probably being the next two largest producers.
I've now bleached all the mold spots to kill it, but between the moisture and the mold, there are already permanent stains as you can see in the photo below. Right now it seems to be staying under control since I've been trying to go around and wipe up condensation twice a day. As well as moving my small fan around the house to keep air moving in all the damp spots. And with the weather being unseasonably warm, I've also been keeping a lot of the windows open at least a crack to keep more air moving.
All this helps. But I think the issue won't really go away until it's warm enough to keep the whole house wide open most of the time and not have condensation occurring. And I suspect the issue will return with winter. So I believe this will be a long term ongoing issue.
I would certainly use composite window frames not wood if I had the design to do over again. It seems that having less windows but a few larger ones, without the little pane dividers would also help reduce the amount of edges where condensation could form. I'd also skip the thinner decretive panel in the door. The thicker parts do not form condensation. The metal hinges in the door conduct the cold well, forming condensation continually and dripping a steady stream of rust as you can see in the last photo. I don't know enough about building to know what could be done about that, other than maybe using a stainless steel hinge if such a thing even exists. I guess we'll see if I figure out a better way to stop/deal with this all this as time goes on.
