Damp victorian living room

[Persis]

Hi everyone - I'm really new to all of this but a bit stumped and could do with some advice.

We have just bought a huge victorian house. We weren't really looking for a project but we love it, and we are in now. We had a survey which didn't show anything major structural wrong.

The living room is an issue. It's a huge room and the ceilings are 3.5m high, and there are huge windows on both aspects which we are having renovated. However there are some damp patches on the walls. We had a holder to look at them and he thinks they are condensation, and they are certainly improving with the heating on, but are a worry.

The house had some damp proofing work done in the 1980s and I've seen some holes in the brickwork in the side passage (rest of the house is rendered) that I think are probably from then? It is also above a cellar which was tanked in the 1990s and has just a small extractor fan in it.

Questions:
1. Do I get someone to come and look at the damp proof course?
2. We need new floors - was thinking of an engineered wood but will this make it damper?
3. Should we do something about the cellar?
4. Is it worth putting some internal insulation in? If so what?

I'm attaching some photos but I'm so clueless they may mean nothing!

 

[Persis]

Sorry about the biro on the wall. Slightly unpredictable small children who were soundly told off!

 

[Cherryburn]

Well at least they had the good grace to drill their stupid holes in the mortar gap where it's easily repairable. Don't worry too much about the damp proof course, it's rarely the cause of an issue in isolation. I don't see too much of an issue in the photo. It's pretty common for houses that are left unoccupied for a while to seem like they're developing issues with damp or condensation, but once they've been lived in for a bit it often sorts itself out.

Your outside ground level seems to have been raised since the house was built, and is partially blocking some of the vents. Sorting that out can help improve ventilation quite a lot, and prevent rain water from just running in.

If the damp you're seeing starts around a meter or so up the walls on the ground floor, then one possibility is that they've tanked the room with either a plastic membrane or cement render. It wouldn't be too unexpected if they tanked the basement too. But what this can do is just hide a problem temporarily until the water works it's way up to above the level of the tanking. Unfortunately there's no easy solutions if that's the case, beyond sorting out any water ingress and taking it back to brick to start again with actually appropriate materials. As I say though, don't think you have reason to panic quite yet.

 

[aockenden]

2. The material chosen for the finished floor surface itself shouldn’t make a house more or less damp. It’s the installation of the materials that’s the important part. Are your floors suspended timber or solid floors in the place you’ll be redoing?
3. Is the cellar currently damp / musty?
4. Only you can answer that question and you’ll probably need to live in the house a while before knowing your answer to that question. Certainly if you’re already doing major works it can be worth doing at the same time.

 

[larry]

Some wider thoughts.
Do your reading on old houses before you start putting down new floor coverings etc. Understand how solid walls vs cavity walls work and how a suspended floor should work vs a solid one. Understand the principle of breathability. Older houses can be wonderful but they often mean lots of love and unfortunately having to deal with inappropriate fixes that cause secondary problems. This forum is an amazing information source.

Before you lay new flooring at the very least lift some boards and have a look at what is going on down there. Take photos.

Lots of it is about getting the ordering of work right and doing jobs in the right order. We embarked on project insulation after our first year gas bill was about 4x more than what we used to. Means adding wood fibre insulation to the walls and new plaster... Of course we'd already decorated....

Don't trust tradespeople who don't understand old houses and want to fix everything with cement based products.

Personally I'd advise a winter in the house without doing too much to it. Use your Christmas list to enhance your tool collection! Get friendly with somebody who understands lime mortar...!


Just my two cents

 

[Persis]

This is reassuring, thank you! It is about a meter off the floor but when we had the survey done (when the house was being lived in) the damp readings were only slightly elevated, so I think we will just try and live there for a bit and see what happens.

I have no idea about the floor! I'll have a look. I pulled up a corner of the carpet when we first came in and was hoping there would be a beautiful parquet or something underneath but it is just v ugly floorboards.

The cellar is a bit stale-smelling but there's no mould or anything there. I left a dehumidifier running there for a bit but then moved it to the living room, but I could get another and run it there (i feel that as it is tanked that is potentially helpful?). There is apparently a sump pump somewhere but I haven't found it yet....

I was thinking about insulation as I feel like once the windows are restored (fairly big job) and the shutters are restored and we lay a new floor that the walls will be in a mess anyway and we may as well do it before we decorate, just as you say. If the wall is a bit damp though will that make it worse? And what insulation would be a good choice and who do I get to fit it?

The other thing is that I cut the hedges back from the front of the house as I felt that them constantly dripping rain onto the wall couldn't be helping. I will try just prising out a few of the driveway bricks from in front of the airbricks as well.

Apart from the windows (which give me the horrors as they are low and one pane is cracked already and the aforementioned unpredictable small children) none of this will happen before Christmas as budget will not allow.....but I spend all my time prowling around and trying to get things into a more friendly condition!

 

[larry]

I was thinking about insulation as I feel like once the windows are restored (fairly big job) and the shutters are restored and we lay a new floor that the walls will be in a mess anyway and we may as well do it before we decorate, just as you say. If the wall is a bit damp though will that make it worse? And what insulation would be a good choice and who do I get to fit it?

It looks like those are solid walls?

If so, wood fibre insulation is a good choice. Fairly easy to install. But do your reading first...

As for who.... Somebody you trust to take their time... And knows how to mix a lime plaster (it's not hard, but most /many modern trades know only cement)

 

[Lacan07]

This is reassuring, thank you! It is about a meter off the floor but when we had the survey done (when the house was being lived in) the damp readings were only slightly elevated, so I think we will just try and live there for a bit and see what happens.

I have no idea about the floor! I'll have a look. I pulled up a corner of the carpet when we first came in and was hoping there would be a beautiful parquet or something underneath but it is just v ugly floorboards.

The cellar is a bit stale-smelling but there's no mould or anything there. I left a dehumidifier running there for a bit but then moved it to the living room, but I could get another and run it there (i feel that as it is tanked that is potentially helpful?). There is apparently a sump pump somewhere but I haven't found it yet....

I was thinking about insulation as I feel like once the windows are restored (fairly big job) and the shutters are restored and we lay a new floor that the walls will be in a mess anyway and we may as well do it before we decorate, just as you say. If the wall is a bit damp though will that make it worse? And what insulation would be a good choice and who do I get to fit it?

The other thing is that I cut the hedges back from the front of the house as I felt that them constantly dripping rain onto the wall couldn't be helping. I will try just prising out a few of the driveway bricks from in front of the airbricks as well.

Apart from the windows (which give me the horrors as they are low and one pane is cracked already and the aforementioned unpredictable small children) none of this will happen before Christmas as budget will not allow.....but I spend all my time prowling around and trying to get things into a more friendly condition!

Definitely live in the house for a while before making any major decisions if you can and swot up on old houses. My first book was the Haynes guide.

But the first thing to notice in your photos is the external ground looks too high. Its needs to be at least a course or two below the original air bricks. Rain water may splash on to the hard surfaces and breach the DPC (if you have one). Check the base of the external walls, if no obvious issues then treat it as non urgent.

 

[Persis]

Yes I expect that rainwater is running under our house AND splashing up, that's great advice, so today's little project is to prize up some driveway bricks and look at the walls.

I would like to redo all of the front garden anyway as it is just all bricks which leaves no room for flowers so this would be a good excuse.

I'll put that Haynes guide on my Christmas list, thank you!! Nothing can happen quickly (except windows before someone dives through them!!) because it is all SO EXPENSIVE but it's really useful for my spreadsheet to have a priority level (phase 1, 2 or 3) and a ballpark cost!

Thanks everyone, this is really useful. It's such a pretty house and I really want to be a responsible caretaker of it, which I'm not sure every previous owner has been!

 

[Persis]

If the driveway is causing damp issues then I can put front garden up to phase 2 which will be lovely

 

[DaveG]

One thing to add. Don’t trust the 2 pronged damp meters for assessing moisture levels, they are far too unreliable and will tell you there’s damp when there is none. They work on conductivity and the problem with this is lots of things can create higher conductivity levels, not just damp.
Frequently areas where there is a higher level of salts will tell you there is damp when there isn’t. The most certain means to know is with a carbide test which involves drilling a small hole, collecting some of the dust from within the wall and then measuring the moisture within that sample.
It’s often quite expensive to get this done so if as others have suggested, you get to know your building and how it should work optimally you’ll often start to see causes of higher moisture levels and be able to start addressing these.
The most obvious issue you have is as mentioned, high external ground levels. This is a very big factor. Search up the “zebcolm” trench on this forum. I’m in the process of doing this myself!

Your best bet for monitoring damp indoors for now is to get a bunch of humidity readers and put them in various rooms. This is a bit of a general statement as relative humidity is “relative” to the temperature but anything above 70% I would say is an indication you are at risk of having damp walls in your home

 

[lizziecupcakes]

I have a 1907 Edwardian house.

I’ve got a small damp patch by my kitchen garden door. It’s from splash back because the previous owner stupidly put concrete on the ground outside and it’s way too high and close to the vent level. It should be about two bricks below, plus it’s ugly concrete that just collects water. I will get rid of it in the new year when my budget allows. Also, the gutter above is dripping a little bit onto there too. I saw it all happening during heavy rain about a week or two ago now. It’s two little patches, not that bad but the splashes have breached the original slate DCM.

You might find a similar reason and it dries up (ours dried up), no mould and we are using the dehumidifier + kitchen fan when we need.

I agree with others, live in your house for a good while before you make drastic changes.

We had to change our electrics (rewire) due to not being safe for use so we had to arrange that straight away on move in. We kind of know what we will do with the house in the future though just because of space limitations and similar houses and layout on the street have made their changes already so we can see what would or wouldn’t work.

We plan to live through the seasons as is for a year so we can see what the house is like throughout the Year. Only changes we will make is a new boiler and loft insulation.

I wouldn’t worry too much about that damp patch. Defo learn about breathability in period properties. Good luck!

 

[Persis]

OMG the zebcolm trench is a thing of great beauty!!

We also thought our house was a turnkey property, just requiring cosmetic updating. Which was wrong. It's worth it though.

We will see how it goes over the year - it has been a very wet season so there's that to think about - but we need to start thinking about bit because we don't have a redoing budget (except for windows) as our survey was all great, so we need to make some decisions about how we spend our money!

 

[Persis]

And I will get some humidity readers, they sound easy and fun!

 

[paulc]

And I will get some humidity readers, they sound easy and fun!

I can recommend the Xiaomi Mi temperature & humidity sensors - You can get an app for your phone (if it can do low energy BlueTooth (BLE)) and log the data. Or if you are a little more tech savvy, they can talk to a home automation system via a BLE link. Shop around on ebay, Amazon, or aliexpress, and you should be able to find them for as little as £4 (buy a pack of four or five and stick them in multiple locations). Do be careful when buying online. There are several Mi knockoffs that look similar. Some have BLE, some don't, and many don't have an app.

 

[lizziecupcakes]

Thanks @paulc I think I’ll buy this!

 

[Maria D]

Hi Persis. Very interested in this post. I've recently bought an Edwardian red brick detached house which also has a damp patch on the living room external wall. Like you, I think it's moisture coming in from gaps in the brick and plants etc that had overgrown as the house has been vacant for a few years. I'm at the stage of trying to figure out how to best keep the house warm into the future without running into some of the mould and moisture issues others have encountered. For this reason, we have decided not to insulate exterior walls, but instead focus on upgrading the windows and insulating the attic. If we can, we would like to put in some (breathable) under floor insulation. Does it sound like this is the right direction to go in? The house doesn't feel cold and isn't at all musty or fusty, despite its age and not having had a resident for over 5 years.

 

[Lacan07]

Hi Persis. Very interested in this post. I've recently bought an Edwardian red brick detached house which also has a damp patch on the living room external wall. Like you, I think it's moisture coming in from gaps in the brick and plants etc that had overgrown as the house has been vacant for a few years. I'm at the stage of trying to figure out how to best keep the house warm into the future without running into some of the mould and moisture issues others have encountered. For this reason, we have decided not to insulate exterior walls, but instead focus on upgrading the windows and insulating the attic. If we can, we would like to put in some (breathable) under floor insulation. Does it sound like this is the right direction to go in? The house doesn't feel cold and isn't at all musty or fusty, despite its age and not having had a resident for over 5 years.

Insulation in the loft is a must, its where the vast majority of your heat will be lost so its where you'll save the most money.

If your house is already in good order I don't see why you can't insulate the exterior walls with wood fibre, i wouldn't worry about mould, etc, but i'm not a huge fan of insulating sub floors. Other opinions on here may vary.

 

[lizziecupcakes]

but i'm not a huge fan of insulating sub floors. Other opinions on here may vary.

that’s interesting @Lacan07 . I’d love to know why

 

[alexander]

that’s interesting @Lacan07 . I’d love to know why

in reality you only lose a very small percentage of heat through your floor space but constant air flow to the floor joists will prevent rot in the timbers, you biggest loss is your loft & walls which account for about 70% of any heat loss in a house, although non breathable insulation on the walls will cause you problems long term wood fibre is ideal for walls as it still allows the walls to breathe.