A
Anonymous
Guest
We have bought a c.1880 brick farmhouse knowing that it had a number of 'damp issues' which we are now trying to resolve and we have found it impossible to find any ‘experts’ that haven’t immediately mentioned the phrases chemical-injection, anti-sulphate or cement based plaster!
The house has solid brick walls with lime mortar used and around 2 foot of cement render applied to the outside walls down to ground level. The ground level outside is about the same as internal floor level and had paving slabs laid against one side and tarmac against the other. All inside walls show signs of damp (even wet walls in places) to around 1m high, including internal brick walls, despite a cement plaster/render having been applied to between 30cm-1m and meeting the floor. The rest of the plaster above this is lime. Wooden noggins for skirting boards have been removed and were almost totally destroyed by ‘woodworm’ and saturated with moisture. The internal floor is concrete (around 2" thick laid onto sand then earth with no DPM). Also there are a number of damaged bricks externally just above where the cement render finishes with obvious salt deposits.
We have almost completed removing the cement based plaster internally and have attempted to remove the external render - cracked areas come away ok but the sound areas are very difficult to remove. We are also creating a foot wide lowered area of ground around the house by removing paving and cutting back tarmac.
Our main concerns are:
1) We want dry walls! We would like to be able to apply standard plaster finishes internally (sorry!) rather than lime plasters if possible to allow for greater flexibility in painting (especially concerned with use of limewash in kitchen) but we are unsure if this is feasible or what type of dry-lining with ventilation would be required (we have seen products such as Newlath, Oldroyd etc. but are unsure about their suitability).
2) Will lowering the external ground levels reduce the problem of damp rising up the internal walls or do we need to consider removing the concrete floor?
3) We would also like to have solid oak flooring throughout the downstairs but we are concerned about damage by laying flooring directly onto the concrete (even though it does not appear to be damp).
4) What should we do about the external render? We will probably not be able to remove every last bit of cement and the state of the bricks will require re-rendering, this time with lime I am presuming – will the lime render adhere to the cement areas?
Sorry for all the questions, we would appreciate any advice on the steps we’ve taken and what we should next.
The house has solid brick walls with lime mortar used and around 2 foot of cement render applied to the outside walls down to ground level. The ground level outside is about the same as internal floor level and had paving slabs laid against one side and tarmac against the other. All inside walls show signs of damp (even wet walls in places) to around 1m high, including internal brick walls, despite a cement plaster/render having been applied to between 30cm-1m and meeting the floor. The rest of the plaster above this is lime. Wooden noggins for skirting boards have been removed and were almost totally destroyed by ‘woodworm’ and saturated with moisture. The internal floor is concrete (around 2" thick laid onto sand then earth with no DPM). Also there are a number of damaged bricks externally just above where the cement render finishes with obvious salt deposits.
We have almost completed removing the cement based plaster internally and have attempted to remove the external render - cracked areas come away ok but the sound areas are very difficult to remove. We are also creating a foot wide lowered area of ground around the house by removing paving and cutting back tarmac.
Our main concerns are:
1) We want dry walls! We would like to be able to apply standard plaster finishes internally (sorry!) rather than lime plasters if possible to allow for greater flexibility in painting (especially concerned with use of limewash in kitchen) but we are unsure if this is feasible or what type of dry-lining with ventilation would be required (we have seen products such as Newlath, Oldroyd etc. but are unsure about their suitability).
2) Will lowering the external ground levels reduce the problem of damp rising up the internal walls or do we need to consider removing the concrete floor?
3) We would also like to have solid oak flooring throughout the downstairs but we are concerned about damage by laying flooring directly onto the concrete (even though it does not appear to be damp).
4) What should we do about the external render? We will probably not be able to remove every last bit of cement and the state of the bricks will require re-rendering, this time with lime I am presuming – will the lime render adhere to the cement areas?
Sorry for all the questions, we would appreciate any advice on the steps we’ve taken and what we should next.