Hi all, i am a first time homeowner of a 1903 end stone terrace in the High Peak. Our front room flooring is pictured below and suffers from some damp ingress. I am unsure of the material, some have said its bitumen some have said its cement. When we purchased, there was a problem with damp from a cracked rain pipe where it met the ground outside which caused bad damp through the floor and up the walls. We have repaired this and done our best to dry out the room by exposing the floor and using dehumidifiers. This worked well but seemed to reach a point with no further improvement. We then covered the floor with carpet cut offs over winter and didn't use the dehumidifier. Upon checking the flooring early spring there was some damp (cold to touch not soggy/wet) where it was previously dried (by humidifier)
With a lot of rain the house can smell a bit damp but we tend to keep the dehumidifier on which works well. I have taken up some of the red flooring and underneath looks like a lime rubble type floor but again I am not certain on this. The red flooring is around 1.5 inches deep and very cracked / warped / raised in places due to god knows how long damp.
In terms of the front of the house, we dug a trench to try to help but I don't think this was very effective. The levels are the same inside and outside the house but we've been unable to reduce outside due to a huge concrete slab that we can't get through. Hopefully one day we can remove this but it is too thick so not a priority right now, our focus is on having a finished floor in the living room.
I have researched a full limecrete floor with membrane etc which I think is our best solution as I want to allow the minimal damp that does come through to escape, and I'm happy with this. We simply don't have the money to do this though so my question is, if we removed the top red flooring layer which we can easily do ourselves, is there a type of levelling compound that is breathable, which we could then lay limestone tiles on to allow the moisture that does come in to evaporate without needing to dig so far down as a full limecrete floor.
Apologies if this is too little or too much info, I'd really appreciate any sound advice in a world that I find very hard to navigate.
Thank you
With a lot of rain the house can smell a bit damp but we tend to keep the dehumidifier on which works well. I have taken up some of the red flooring and underneath looks like a lime rubble type floor but again I am not certain on this. The red flooring is around 1.5 inches deep and very cracked / warped / raised in places due to god knows how long damp.
In terms of the front of the house, we dug a trench to try to help but I don't think this was very effective. The levels are the same inside and outside the house but we've been unable to reduce outside due to a huge concrete slab that we can't get through. Hopefully one day we can remove this but it is too thick so not a priority right now, our focus is on having a finished floor in the living room.
I have researched a full limecrete floor with membrane etc which I think is our best solution as I want to allow the minimal damp that does come through to escape, and I'm happy with this. We simply don't have the money to do this though so my question is, if we removed the top red flooring layer which we can easily do ourselves, is there a type of levelling compound that is breathable, which we could then lay limestone tiles on to allow the moisture that does come in to evaporate without needing to dig so far down as a full limecrete floor.
Apologies if this is too little or too much info, I'd really appreciate any sound advice in a world that I find very hard to navigate.
Thank you