Hello
While trying to sort our what we are doing in our kitchen I have discovered a strange step in the back wall.
With the fitted kitchen in still I can't be sure but it appears to only be on the rear elevation of the kitchen, on the side wall it just seems to be a continuous normal thickness of brick all the way down.
It stops short of the party wall by about 10mm, and is very wet from this point out to about 400mm. Concrete floor seems dry from the little I can see. Wall above also appears dry but I think there is cement/sand render behind the gypsum plaster so difficult to tell. From it is difficult to tell what it is made of seems the be either brick with a little bit of cement skimmed over, or concrete, but very difficult to tell...
Is this a common detail? Does it serve any purpose?
The plan in here was to take the walls back to the brick, add 20mm woodfibre board and skim with lime. From some discussion on here I was thinking of maybe having the bottom 200 or 300mm in PIR or something in any case to prevent any risk of the woodfibre wicking moisture from the floor or below DPC. I assume It will be a massive cold bridge if I do nothing, but not sure what to do now in this area. Any ideas?
Photos and attempt at a section...




While trying to sort our what we are doing in our kitchen I have discovered a strange step in the back wall.
With the fitted kitchen in still I can't be sure but it appears to only be on the rear elevation of the kitchen, on the side wall it just seems to be a continuous normal thickness of brick all the way down.
It stops short of the party wall by about 10mm, and is very wet from this point out to about 400mm. Concrete floor seems dry from the little I can see. Wall above also appears dry but I think there is cement/sand render behind the gypsum plaster so difficult to tell. From it is difficult to tell what it is made of seems the be either brick with a little bit of cement skimmed over, or concrete, but very difficult to tell...
Is this a common detail? Does it serve any purpose?
The plan in here was to take the walls back to the brick, add 20mm woodfibre board and skim with lime. From some discussion on here I was thinking of maybe having the bottom 200 or 300mm in PIR or something in any case to prevent any risk of the woodfibre wicking moisture from the floor or below DPC. I assume It will be a massive cold bridge if I do nothing, but not sure what to do now in this area. Any ideas?
Photos and attempt at a section...



