damp?

[jungle_jim01]

I'm guessing this could be opening a can of worms....I've finally got around to the ground floor and the dampest room in the house. I've stripped the cladding, wallpaper, paint and more wallpaper off the walls! The bottom metre or so has some deposits and the paper feels slightly damp to touch but there's not really any staining on the wall.

My thinking is that damp has been caused by the replacement of the original suspended floor with concrete (argh!...i'm not going to pull the floor out). This looks like it's probably been exasperated by the wall being concreted down to the floor level with no air gap.

My plan is to chisel out the concrete at the base of the wall to allow moisture to evaporate but when i come to putting skirting on, will this trap moisture again? I'm planning on using vertical wooden battens to bring the skirting away from the wall slightly but does the skirting need venting to the room some how?

Thanks

 

[Penners]

Quite right, you don't want to infuriate and already exasperated building!

I'm afraid it's absolutely impossible for anyone to give you definitive advice about your damp problem, on the basis of a few sentences of explanation here. However, if you have damp issues resulting from a concrete floor and concrete rendered walls, it's probably unlikely that hacking off a line of concrete underneath the skirtings is going to be sufficient to resolve the problem.

You'd probably be better off hacking off all the internal lining - concrete, gypsum plaster or whatever - up to a height of about a metre. Then leave it for a few months to dry out thoroughly. After that, you could re-plaster with lime or encase the naked brickwork with wainscotting (ensuring that the cavity behind it has plenty of provision for air circulation).

 

[jungle_jim01]

Thanks for the quick reply. I was hoping to avoid using wainscotting. The damp areas are pretty much confined to 2 corners of the room adjacent to an old chimney breast. We were going to build a cupboard into these spaces so maybe i'll leave the wall behind the cupboard bare and hide it behind a wooden panel.

 

[middi]

We have no time on this forum to discuss your damp problem, WE ARE TOO BUSY SORTING OUT OUR OWN DAMP PROBLEMS. ( :wink: )
But I do agree with Penners, every damp issue has a cause that needs to be understood and not every damp problem needs the same remedial treatment to eradicate it, simply because the provenance of the damp and building fabric varies in every situation encountered.

It is a process of, understading, intuition, investigation, elimination, professional help, moving house, leave the country for warmer climates and as a last resort-- SUICIDE--

Middi

 

[Penners]

It's always good to have Middi's professional views on any subject. :wink:

 

[Moo]

We were going to build a cupboard into these spaces so maybe i'll leave the wall behind the cupboard bare and hide it behind a wooden panel.

I don't want to pour cold water over your idea, but I have a nasty feeling that your proposed solution would only be a temporary sticking-plaster: the wooden panel would be unlikely to allow for much evaporation and would quite likely rot away in time.
And if you didn't instal the wooden panel, the cupboard itself would become damp. Unless, of course, you left plenty of room top and bottom for ventilation.

What's the outside of the wall like? Is there impermeable render, or a high ground level, or a concrete path, or badly performing guttering? Any of these could be causing the damp, and their correction could well solve your problem.

 

[Penners]

I don't want to pour cold water over your idea

I should think not, Moo - Jim has quite enough damp problems already.

But I do agree with your observation.

 

[tobydog]

I agree with Moo. Before we ripped out our old kitchen, it backed onto the inglenook which we knew was damp. Everytime we open the cupboard doors there was a terrible stink. That was with a back panel. I imagine it would be even worse going directly into your cupboard.

I knew we were trapping damp in our plinth wall because it was encased in cement. Whilst the room wasn't particularly damp, damp was killing everything behind the cement. When the cement was removed we had a horrible smell for a few days (decaying bricks and timber) followed by the back of the sofa close to the wall even going moldy. The wall has been drying out for 6 months now and is a huge improvement. Unless you can fix the source / cause of the problem, I wouldn't go covering it with anything for several months, and then only with something that allows it to breath / be well ventilated.

Off on my lime course on Wednesday. Hopefully they have gazebos. No chance of the lime going off too quickly :roll:

 

[Penners]

Unless you can fix the source / cause of the problem, I wouldn't go covering it with anything for several months, and then only with something that allows it to breath / be well ventilated.

Good advice.