Confused by my bathroom

[Anonymous]

Ok, so my Cottage is C18th, with a victorian (I think) rear lean to extension which contains a kitchen.
I think a further extension was then added to this to make the bathroom.

The house is a former estate house and try as I might no records seem to exist for what works were done and when they were done. This I hasten to add explains a lot. There is a post at the front of the house where I think the builders employed on our house used to also tie their horses ! -)).

So anyway the bathroom is accessed via step up from the kitchen why the need for a step I don't know what's under the floor I also don't know.

Having taken down the rotting timber planked ceiling (tongue and groove, I discovered that the external walls of the bathroom are in fact cavity walls (the rest of the house all flemish bond!!)
Having removed the ceiling to reveal the top of the cavity wall I also note some damp proof (or something similar) that seems to be attached to the inner wall, having also cement render on both external walls you'd have thought it would be a cold damp place with mold growing off the walls but no...for a bathroom it's remarkably dry and but for the tiled floor it's actually pretty warm.
I'm in the process of removing the render on the rest of the external wall

So my plan is to board (using plasterboard) the external (gable end) wall above the cavity a. because I'm not v good a brick laying and b. I can't afford someone to do the brick laying. I had half a mind to remove the internal cavity wall completely but that would leave a single skin external wall so not sure that's a good idea.

Any thoughts, should I let sleeping dogs lie ?

Paul.

 

[Feltwell]

Hi Paul - if it's a cavity wall then cement based render on the outside is not a problem, there's no need for breathability. Unless the cavity has been bridged the internal walls should be nice & dry, so I'm not surprised that it's warm in there.

Removing the internal wall to leave a single skin you are quite right is a bad idea. As to using plasterboard on the inside of your gable end wall - I think some pictures would help, I can't quite envisage what you mean. Are you saying that the internal wall doesn't extend above the old ceiling height, and you are planning to put a new ceiling in at a greater height, therefore leaving a gap that needs to be addressed?

 

[MikeG]

The difficulty is that the writer is familiar with his house layout and the details, and we, the reader, are not. Descriptions are really difficult to envisage, and thus have a danger of eliciting poor advice. This thread, like so many on the forum, would benefit from photos. If not photos, then a sketch. Or both!!

 

[88v8]

Photos can be posted without size limit via Photobucket - copy and paste the img code.

Ivor

 

[Anonymous]

Ok so hopefully if I've reduced it in size enough is a picture of the top of the bathroom cavity wall.
So this is an external wall and I've (helpfully I think) drawn an arrow pointing to the DPM that seems to have been attached.

I'm not 100% sure but I think the inside of the outside wall i.e. the bricks that you can see is also plastered but it's quite hard to tell.

To my untrained (but rapidly becoming trained) eye it looks like the wall is double width probably flemish bond (like the rest of the house) and then the internal wall has been added much later (for what reason I can't tell).

I've removed cement render from one side (window) of the bathroom, I just have big wall (gable end) to do (the one shown in the picture (but the other side).

I'll see if I can resize some more pictures...

The bathroom itself whilst part of the rear extension (that includes the kitchen), has a step which I can't think why it is needed and the step on the outside results in the back door way having a damp wall as the concrete path height outside is about 1 ft higher than the floor, more pictures to come (hopefully!!).

 

[Anonymous]