Water coming through external wall

[Wstc7a7x]

Hiya!

So I’m having a problem with an external wall. House was built in 1901, old farm bungalow (stone not brick). On the front of the house, the left side is built mirror image of the right front of house. Air bricks are at the base of the wall under each window.

My issue is that every autumn/winter, the right hand side of the front of house, gets damp at the bottom 1/4 of the wall, and doesn’t rise further up but there no issue with the left side. There are 2 bushes in front of the wall below the window but I keep them cut back for airflow. Inside has wood effect plasterboard around and below the window. Water has started to bead on the wooden boards and on the walls either side of the window, all Across the bottom of the wall.

Drain overhangs a lot and I keep them clear, so I don’t think it’s that. And I do keep the bushes maintained and the air brick clear for airflow.

Does anyone have any idea what’s could be causing the water to come through? It’s true Scottish weather right now so any pictures would be marred by rain.

very interested to see what those downpipes go into, and how close they are to your wet patch.

Ill have a dig tomorrow to see whats under the soil, i’ve never noticed anything there before but I haven’t really been paying attention when weeding. normally, there’s no greenery around it, but we’ve had an influx of (what I think is) ground elder which is getting to be a pain, but thats another matter!

the grill is to allow airflow under the floor, I have the same setup in the living room and back bedroom (but no problems in these rooms).

As for the pattern, i’m not knowledgable if its render or dressed stone (not really by expertise so I don’t know what it means, sorry!) all I know is that its stone walls with a covering of sorts. As you can see from the other pictures, the stone is more visible higher up.

No cellar here, so can’t say what its like below the wooden floor and i’d rather not have the OH come home to find me pulling up floorboards (it’s his house so I don’t want to break it!)

I do know, that all our drains to the septic tank are clay, but they’ve been checked in the past 6 months as next door had a flooding issue (blocked drain) so they’re not damaged as far as we know.

I have no certain idea where the down pipes go to, but i’m pretty sure they lead to a clay drain pipe that goes to nearby farm field. Either that or septic tank. I’ll have a dig and try an find out tomorrow while i’m looking what’s below the soil by the wall

Veronicat, I’m not sure....

I have no idea what our stone is to be fair (clueless, I know!). But that part of the house is more sheltered so I would have thought if it was erosion our living room would have the problems, not the bedroom.

Another possibility is when the ponting/render has been redone the old stuff would have been chipped and raked out but some may have fallen in the cavity between the outside wall and the inside wall. Worth knocking on the internal wall above the damp line and below. If it sounds hollow above but not below this may be a contributing factor.

1901 stone building very unlikely to have cavity walls.

Mould is rarely associated with anything but condensation, so I would be pretty sure that's what's going on here.

As I mentioned, that's not to say there isn't another issue, these things can often come in twos and threes. A penetrating damp issue can lower the surface temperature below the dew point temperature and condensation will occur on top of another problem.

A surveyor could easily/accurately get a moisture reading from the timber boarding which would tell you instantly if it's a penetrating damp issue, condensation or both. Beyond that you need to start drilling holes and creating moisture profiles, testing for salts, thermal imaging, hygrometer data loggers etc etc.

I always advise my clients to start off with the cheaper, non invasive analysis and go from there.

It looks like someone has made a real mess of repointing. Looks like they’ve used cement and for some reason they’ve spread it all over the stonework.

As pp suggests, it’s also possible that the space between the wood panelling and the stone wall has been filled up with old mortar or other rubble which is holding moisture, making the wood damp.

Can you remove a section of the wood panelling to see what’s behind it?

It looks like someone has made a real mess of repointing. Looks like they’ve used cement and for some reason they’ve spread it all over the stonework.

That's not a 'mess of repointing' that's pretty standard building practice for Scottish building of this period. I live in one. The quoins, door and window frames are build with dressed stone and the walls between made with inferior rubble and fieldstones. The rendering is then used to 'smooth out' the wall with fake joints scribed in.

Though it's difficult to tell from that photo that looks like original lime mortar rather than more modern cement.

In scotland that type of building often has lath and plaster walls which create a gap between the external wall and internal surface. I live in one and have a surveying degree. This is a fairly common issue, which is why I suggested.

They are replacement windows too. So it 's possible that when they were renewed a whole pile of crap fell down the gap Ineedanamechange79 mentions and is now sitting on the ends of the floorboards (under the tongue and groove panelling) and blocking the airflow.

I've worked on many buildings like this (owned two) and it's sometimes quite disheartening to see the levels of garbage people will leave behind while doing a job. The Friday night 'Sweep it under the floor and bugger off sharpish' syndrome.

BTW I don't think the downpipes should be going into a septic tank. I'm pretty sure that surface run-off water has to be kept separate from house waste water.

I know the building inspectors on my house conversion were insistent that the roans didn't feed into the sewers. So we disconnected them and put in new soakaways.

(This turned into a bit of a problem when it turned out no one had ever connected the building to the main sewer - though everyone thought it had been, back in the 1930s when the village had mains sewerage put in. The lack of rainwater running through my (very shallow run) drains meant they eventually blocked. When they were unblocked by the council with a high pressure water jet we ended up heavily polluting the river into which the sewer WAS connected with something like six months worth of backdated poo.)

And you think YOU'VE got problems...

@TheSandman

Yep, now I see the photos of the upper part of the wall, I can see the type of construction. Not particularly typical in my part of Scotland though, and I had the misfortune, a few years back, to live in a sandstone house which had been fucked up in many ways, including botched render, by the previous owner.

Definitely worth checking to see what is between wall and panelling, especially with the newish windows.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

The wood panelling can’t be taken off without removing the entire windowsill unfortunately (I can’t do this myself) but it sounds hollow all around when knocking.

Had a dig and can’t seem to find anything by the walls on the outside, and the down pipe actually goes into next doors garden so can’t dig there. I’ve left them a not asking if they have any ideas where it goes. The only options is the septic tank or one of the various farm fuels that surround us (we do have a field drain going through the front lawn so we wonder if it maybe links in with that?

But will clear all foliage again and get a local builder to take a look. See if we can find a solution :)

are you sure there isn't a gulley at the bottom of the downpipes? Is there an elbow, then, where it turns horizontal? What's the underground pipe made of?

Not that I can see, but it’s in next doors garden. Waiting to hear from them if I can check it out.
I can’t seem to find anything by the wall, but can’t say for certain what’s by the down pipe just yet.

The underground pipe is a massive clay pipe, it’s about 3ft away from the house.

I'd really like to see the bottom of the rainwater downpipes, and this big clay pipe.