Hi folks,
We are in the process of renovating a hundred year old solid brick built house which has a general dampness about it.
When we moved in one wall was soaking wet which has been dried out after removing all of the loose render from that wall and lowering the ground level outside. The rest of the house is covered with cement render some bits still loose and the rest stuck fast. We need to do something about the wall covering though as this house is very exposed and will quickly deteriorate if left as it is. The bricks where we removed the render are all spalled or missing.
I would really appreciate the benefit of the experience you folks have. We have been told by a company that sells lime that we would be best removing all of the loose render and patching with lime render. The things is we've heard that this is difficult to do and are unable to locate any builder with the necessary experience to undertake the work.
As we are in a state of despair now we've started to look towards wall coatings like wethertex and never paint again but although these claim to be breathable I'm not that convinced they'll do the job in an old house. Also they seem to be based on the premise that you need a DPC which we don't have and have been told two local builders we don't need.
A lengthy conversation with the wethertex salesman this morning revealed that they will shave the top off the cement render and secure it to the wall with a system of mesh and pins. He told me that the holes for the pins would provide the render with the breathability we need. They will then coat the wall with their system that they claim allows the walls to breathe and thereby stops penetrating damp. I am pretty convinced though that what we have is condensation damp because the walls aren't wet anymore; there's just a damp smell and feel to things. Has anybody any experience of these types of wall coatings to say whether it will exaccerbate the condensation?
The guy also estimated £15,000 (plus cost of hiring scaffold) which seems really steep to me since we had an estimate for £8,000 to put wall reform insulating boards on the walls and render over the top of that. If anything, I would have thought the wall coatings would have been cheaper than the insulation boards? We live in a conservation area so couldn't go with the external insulation in the end as they would have had to cover some of the historical features.
I guess I'm asking what you would do if it was your house. We don't have a lot of money and had budgeted £10,000 for render. Anything extra we spend will mean we can't have decent central heating (currently heating a three bed house with a single open coal fire but that's a different story).
We are in the process of renovating a hundred year old solid brick built house which has a general dampness about it.
When we moved in one wall was soaking wet which has been dried out after removing all of the loose render from that wall and lowering the ground level outside. The rest of the house is covered with cement render some bits still loose and the rest stuck fast. We need to do something about the wall covering though as this house is very exposed and will quickly deteriorate if left as it is. The bricks where we removed the render are all spalled or missing.
I would really appreciate the benefit of the experience you folks have. We have been told by a company that sells lime that we would be best removing all of the loose render and patching with lime render. The things is we've heard that this is difficult to do and are unable to locate any builder with the necessary experience to undertake the work.
As we are in a state of despair now we've started to look towards wall coatings like wethertex and never paint again but although these claim to be breathable I'm not that convinced they'll do the job in an old house. Also they seem to be based on the premise that you need a DPC which we don't have and have been told two local builders we don't need.
A lengthy conversation with the wethertex salesman this morning revealed that they will shave the top off the cement render and secure it to the wall with a system of mesh and pins. He told me that the holes for the pins would provide the render with the breathability we need. They will then coat the wall with their system that they claim allows the walls to breathe and thereby stops penetrating damp. I am pretty convinced though that what we have is condensation damp because the walls aren't wet anymore; there's just a damp smell and feel to things. Has anybody any experience of these types of wall coatings to say whether it will exaccerbate the condensation?
The guy also estimated £15,000 (plus cost of hiring scaffold) which seems really steep to me since we had an estimate for £8,000 to put wall reform insulating boards on the walls and render over the top of that. If anything, I would have thought the wall coatings would have been cheaper than the insulation boards? We live in a conservation area so couldn't go with the external insulation in the end as they would have had to cover some of the historical features.
I guess I'm asking what you would do if it was your house. We don't have a lot of money and had budgeted £10,000 for render. Anything extra we spend will mean we can't have decent central heating (currently heating a three bed house with a single open coal fire but that's a different story).
