A
Anonymous
Guest
I’ve read all the obvious damp threads since March 2005, but haven’t seen any that quite match the problems I’m experiencing – apologies in advance if I’ve missed a previous answer.
We have a 1930's 2 storey, rendered house and we recently removed an old airing cupboard from the 1st floor bathroom and replaced it with a loft based system. On removing the cupboard we could see that there was some moisture behind it at the top of the wall.
We removed all the adjacent tiles and any plaster (modern) until we were down to bare bricks. There appeared to be two areas of damp at the top of the interior wall that correspond to either side of (not in) the chimney on the outside of the house.
The chimney is not in use and has been roofed over. It is open into the loft cavity, so no air is trapped inside. We left the bricks bare for 15 months with occasional dehumidifier use and always opening the windows wide when the bathroom was in use - not so nice in the winter months.
The bricks in the loft above the ceiling are dry, though the mortar there is very crumbly and there's no water coming through the roof that I can see – it’s in a cramped corner position, but I’ve groped and checked every timber in the area.
We've had a general builder in to lift all the roof tiles and replace any suspect looking roof tiles in the area above the wall and to re-seal/re-flash the soil pipe where it goes through the roof about 6 feet away. The roof construction is wood then tiles, there's no membrane.
I can't feel any moisture in the soffits. There is no damp meter activity on the bricks in the chimney itself.
Applying a damp meter gets a reading on both sides of the wall (interior & exterior) in the affected areas.
The chimney did have a vent at the bottom, though I have covered this up for now as it is close-ish to the central heating exhaust, which I thought might be sucking in moist air into the chimney & condensing, but I covered this up 6 months ago and there has been no appreciable change.
We found that the bricks looked worse after the bath had been used, so we hoped that the building works had fixed the problem and it was now just interior condensation, so after 15 months we had it plastered.
We can now see the damp patch more clearly in the plaster and how it corresponds to the mortar parts of the wall on the top one or two row of bricks near the ceiling. Again this looks worse after the bathroom is used.
There is no immediate dampness increase after wet weather, though 2 days after recent heavy rain and cold weather it did appear worse for the next 3 days.
We've had the builders in twice and a surveyor and we are at a loss as to who to bring in next. We fear we could be at a risk of having expensive needless work done.
We want to tile over the wall, but don't want to just cover up the problem.
Any advice as to our next sensible step?
Many thanks,
Paul
We have a 1930's 2 storey, rendered house and we recently removed an old airing cupboard from the 1st floor bathroom and replaced it with a loft based system. On removing the cupboard we could see that there was some moisture behind it at the top of the wall.
We removed all the adjacent tiles and any plaster (modern) until we were down to bare bricks. There appeared to be two areas of damp at the top of the interior wall that correspond to either side of (not in) the chimney on the outside of the house.
The chimney is not in use and has been roofed over. It is open into the loft cavity, so no air is trapped inside. We left the bricks bare for 15 months with occasional dehumidifier use and always opening the windows wide when the bathroom was in use - not so nice in the winter months.
The bricks in the loft above the ceiling are dry, though the mortar there is very crumbly and there's no water coming through the roof that I can see – it’s in a cramped corner position, but I’ve groped and checked every timber in the area.
We've had a general builder in to lift all the roof tiles and replace any suspect looking roof tiles in the area above the wall and to re-seal/re-flash the soil pipe where it goes through the roof about 6 feet away. The roof construction is wood then tiles, there's no membrane.
I can't feel any moisture in the soffits. There is no damp meter activity on the bricks in the chimney itself.
Applying a damp meter gets a reading on both sides of the wall (interior & exterior) in the affected areas.
The chimney did have a vent at the bottom, though I have covered this up for now as it is close-ish to the central heating exhaust, which I thought might be sucking in moist air into the chimney & condensing, but I covered this up 6 months ago and there has been no appreciable change.
We found that the bricks looked worse after the bath had been used, so we hoped that the building works had fixed the problem and it was now just interior condensation, so after 15 months we had it plastered.
We can now see the damp patch more clearly in the plaster and how it corresponds to the mortar parts of the wall on the top one or two row of bricks near the ceiling. Again this looks worse after the bathroom is used.
There is no immediate dampness increase after wet weather, though 2 days after recent heavy rain and cold weather it did appear worse for the next 3 days.
We've had the builders in twice and a surveyor and we are at a loss as to who to bring in next. We fear we could be at a risk of having expensive needless work done.
We want to tile over the wall, but don't want to just cover up the problem.
Any advice as to our next sensible step?
Many thanks,
Paul