damp in corner of bedrooms, crack outside of house

[southeastastralbeing]

i assume the crack outside is causing the internal damp problem. wondering what sort of damp this could be?

would it be expensive to fix or could I do it myself? some plaster has crumbled off am broke so very worried

oh no, are there no crack experts on mn :(

That would be penetrating damp.

No idea how easy or costly it would be to fix on a modern house, I'm afraid.

How big is the crack? Tbh, it's probably best to inform your insurance company and let them investigate.

it's a 60s house. the crack is quite small. dp thinks insurance wouldn't pay for some reason.

Is there a leak in your guttering?

Is the house rendered ? In that case it wouyld be letting water in through the crack

I think if there is a crack, they will at least investigate and that means you get an engineer's report telling you exactly what is wrong and you can then have it fixed on that basis at your expense. To be honest, you don't want it to be subsidence (which it probably isn't if it's appeared at the top of the house) but you do want to know what is causing it so you can get a builder to repair that and not make up some massive job if it isn't, iyswim.

i think it may be rendered (what's that exactly)

am pissed of always me who has to sort this out.

i slapped on some damp paint inside but there was lots of mould (hidden under wardrobe) had to cut off lots of wallpaper and the plater just fell off too under it

Render is any finish on top of the brick such as plaster/stucco or pebbledash. It sounds as if the damp is quite bad, best to bite the bullet and ring the insurers. If they will not help, start asking round for a good builder.

thanks for your advice lala - hope i can find a reliable expert to fix it

Hiya.. Was going to make a joke about being sure there were no crack experts, but i've seen a lot of references to 'joints' and cannabis - but thought against it...

What is the height and width of the crack?? Its not good if it is caused by some sort of foundation subsidence, expensive!.. If however its purely something like crap pointing- You can fill it with a transparent exterior silicone sealant, in a skeletal gun..Which will stop the damp getting in for a little while- not a long term solution tho'

Good luck

it's upstairs so about 12 ft i suppose seems okay downstairs

Hi SouthEast
We've got almost exactly the same problem. We were told by our builder that as the cracks were above our door, it was probably because it was a 'point of weakness' (our house is Victorian) and that the damp was caused by faulty guttering, which was coming in through the cracks.

I'd second what other posters have said about checking gutters or a good builder who can tell you what's going on. We were told that once the cracks were filled and the gutter sorted out it'd be ok. It didn't take our friend long to fix it - he mixed up some new mortar and put it on. It didn't cost much either - think it was about £100 at most (but we had something else done too, so sorry I can't be more specific).

Don't know if any of this is helpful but hope at least you're not up all night googling 'penetrating damp'. I thought we'd moved into the House of Usher...

Fingers crossed for you and hope it's all sorted out really quickly.

Aah , Its upstairs! presumed it was downstairs..I'm such a wombat!!