Penetrating damp

[legolammb]

Last year when we were having the terrible storms we had some water come through an external wall - the mortar in the bricks was really patchy and let the rain in. We have been left with big yellow damp stained patches on the inside of the wall. We had someone come and put a silicone layer on the external bricks to seal them. We now need to deal with the internal damp residue and paint the walls. I'm a fairly new homeowner so a novice at this. We are having another room painted - can a painter and decorator cover up the damp patches or does it need something special doing first? Do we need a damp specialist or general builder?

Do you need to get the outside of your house re-rendered first, to stop the rain coming in again?

water should not come through walls. Why did it come in? Is there a blocked gutter or broken drainpipe? Or is there a hole in the brickwork?

You need to repair the fault, not apply silicone.

A builder can repair the defect in your house, but you need to know what it is. A person that sells dampproofing will tell you that you need to buy dampproofing. you don't.

You need a personal recommendation for a small local building firm. A website is not the same thing, especially if the trades pay to advertise on it and write the "customer reviews" themselves.
Once you have repaired the fault, the wall will dry out and can be redecorated. This may take some months. It will dry out quicker if you expose it to fresh air, for example removing furniture and wallpaper.

Sounds as though the exterior wall needs repointing, which is very expensive. If you live in a flat it's likely to be a communal expense. The internal damage should be paid by the same fund as it's lack of maintenance that has caused it, either the repointing or a broken or blocked gutter/pipe (go out and have a look next time it's raining,)
You'll need to dry out the inside walls, and a dehumidifier is very useful for this- Argos sell them for approx £100, or see if any of your friends have one you can borrow.
You can also get a builder to hack the damp back and then apply a cement and special compound that forms a barrier that the damp can't penetrate through. You still need to repair the source of the leak though.

Thanks for the responses. To clarify, it's a typical brick Victorian house split into 2 flats and I'm in the top. The stuff between the bricks (mortar/pointing?) was done quite patchily and didn't look smooth. The handyman that put the silicon sealant on the outside said he thought there was an old window that had been bricked up and it looked like the damp was coming in through that.

It was a year ago that it happened and we did some serious de-humififying so the interior wall should be fully dry. It's just paint, no paper. Any suggestions of how we deal with the inside walls and yellow patches?

I would suspect a faulty gutter or downpipe gushing water down the side of the house. Even quite poor brickwork will withstand ordinary rain.

Have a look outside during rain, preferably with binoculars. If the brickwork or pointing needs repair, ask around for a recommended local builder. Independent bricklayers can do it, if they can be bothered. It may need a scaffold tower to work safely. It's dusty, not a long or difficult job.

Re the stain on the inside, once the wall is dry, you probably need to paint it with a stain blocker before painting it with ordinary paint