jameshouse
Member
- Messages
- 2
- Location
- Northampton
Whilst replacing some skirting board, following the instalation of new central heating, a piece of plaster came off the bottom of the wall reveiling very soft, mushy, very damp red bricks.
We think the house was built in 1750 and extended in around 1800, originally as storage houses possibly for the bakers over the road. The wall in question is where the original external wall from the first building would have been, but is now an internal wall between our lounge and the staircase. It goes right up through the house into the roof space and is a supperting wall. This wall is only about 1 1/2 m wide as the rest of the wall has been removed at some point and replaced with an rsj(? - we hope) to make a through lounge-dining area. Somewhere along the top of this wall alongside the casing we think contains an rsj is also a tie bar that goes right through the house. Where this wall abuts the external wall, the ground the other side is about a meter high up against the wall of the house. The rest of the external wall has an inner brick skin put in at an unknown date (unfortunately they left the plaster on the wall behind from what bits we've seen so god knows what's conceiled in there). But this section I currently worried about obviously goes through that to meet the original wall at a "T". All the plaster appears to go right down to floor level everywhere in the house, we are knocking it off as we replace skirting and decorate.
There was no evidence of damp on the plaster or the skirting of the wall in question. It has a lot of black residue on the bricks and a thick layer of rendering with plaster on top. This all went right down to floor level, I have knocked it off the first 2 or 3 courses of brick to see what's going on. My guess is that it was painted with black jack type stuff and then sealed in with some sort of render as the damp was a problem, this has just kept the damp in the bricks and caused them to deteriorate. Will just letting them breath sort this problem out now, or is it too late for the bricks to be rescued. Or should I just cover it up and ignore it! Rebuilding the bottom wall would be very costly I think, and also problematic as it has the staircase attached to the other side. Could we knock off all the plaster and render, chisel out a section and insert some sort of metal support floor to ceiling and then dry line it and let the air get to the brick work. Any advise would be gratefully received. We are new to this old house thing and can't believe how one thing keeps snowballing into annother and costs are going through the ceiling!!!
We think the house was built in 1750 and extended in around 1800, originally as storage houses possibly for the bakers over the road. The wall in question is where the original external wall from the first building would have been, but is now an internal wall between our lounge and the staircase. It goes right up through the house into the roof space and is a supperting wall. This wall is only about 1 1/2 m wide as the rest of the wall has been removed at some point and replaced with an rsj(? - we hope) to make a through lounge-dining area. Somewhere along the top of this wall alongside the casing we think contains an rsj is also a tie bar that goes right through the house. Where this wall abuts the external wall, the ground the other side is about a meter high up against the wall of the house. The rest of the external wall has an inner brick skin put in at an unknown date (unfortunately they left the plaster on the wall behind from what bits we've seen so god knows what's conceiled in there). But this section I currently worried about obviously goes through that to meet the original wall at a "T". All the plaster appears to go right down to floor level everywhere in the house, we are knocking it off as we replace skirting and decorate.
There was no evidence of damp on the plaster or the skirting of the wall in question. It has a lot of black residue on the bricks and a thick layer of rendering with plaster on top. This all went right down to floor level, I have knocked it off the first 2 or 3 courses of brick to see what's going on. My guess is that it was painted with black jack type stuff and then sealed in with some sort of render as the damp was a problem, this has just kept the damp in the bricks and caused them to deteriorate. Will just letting them breath sort this problem out now, or is it too late for the bricks to be rescued. Or should I just cover it up and ignore it! Rebuilding the bottom wall would be very costly I think, and also problematic as it has the staircase attached to the other side. Could we knock off all the plaster and render, chisel out a section and insert some sort of metal support floor to ceiling and then dry line it and let the air get to the brick work. Any advise would be gratefully received. We are new to this old house thing and can't believe how one thing keeps snowballing into annother and costs are going through the ceiling!!!