Damp is stopping me from getting my (long-dreamed-of) utility room!!!!

[Madmussells]

We had work done on our 1800 end of terrace house 2.5 years ago: new kitchen downstairs, bathroom moved upstairs. Since then we’ve had damp where the old bathroom was and therefore haven’t been able to get our utility room fitted🙁 in fear it will need to be ripped out again. I’ve only half heartedly addressed the issue because of pregnancy, new baby, health issues, full time job. Now I can’t bare it any longer and want to get it sorted. Please can anyone give me advice of where to start?

I’ve looked at website for heritage house damp issues and agree that I want to find out exactly the cause rather than just get chemical damp course put in.

Damp is on internal wall and the weird thing is that it is in the corner closest in to the house.

Correction: House is c1900 not 1800!

So far: We’ve had insurance round who said it’s rising damp-they could tell because they tested for salts in the wet plaster.

Friend with some knowledge of restoring old properties came round, used damp reader and could see damp in a lot of the downstairs room. Said it could be a leaky pipe but we would probably have seen pressure lowering in boiler (we do but think that’s due to a leaky towel rail)

Original builders came to look but said it must have been there before.

I was convinced for a while that it was coming from outside and soaking up (brickwork looks patchy outside, there’s not much space between the patio and the house (although it does slope away) and there is a lot of green algae looking stuff near the house. I was wondering if the room is sitting on a pool of water because downpipe isn’t soaking away properly.

Builder and architect came round. They ran a hose into the down pipe with no overflow so said it couldn’t be that.

Just yesterday I found a leak on the stop cock tap. No one else noticed this over the two years so not sure if it’s been there the whole time... there is now a takeaway container under it: approx 100ml a day leaking. Could this have caused it?

Other info: whilst builders were working, the stop cock was leaking on the floor and they had to use a (very expensive to run!) dehumidifier before continuing with levelling concrete/plastering etc.

Woah! I’m so sorry it’s such a long post!!!! I just wanted to give as much info as possible... might try and upload a photo if I can work out how.

This is the wall into the kitchen. 1.5m to the right is the door into the garden. The damp line goes down towards the door: 45cm at highest point, 10cm at lowest point by door.

Here’s the leaky stop-cock. This is the shared wall with our neighbour. We are now collecting water at 100ml a day until plumber can come to fix it. I can’t believe this was leaking before and I and none of the experts missed it-surely it must have started more recently...

Is this one for @pigletjohn?

I had a tiny leak on a pipe behind our dryer in my newly plastered utility. I think it had been there for 18 months since installation. We only noticed when we saw damp in walls. It's an insurance claim to sort out and will be fine eventually. If it's that it could easily have caused that damage

sorry I can't get to grips with it now. may have some time tomorrow.

the wall does look damp close to the stopcock. Can you draw a plan and elevation showing where the damp parts of the wall (s) are, and where the stopcock is in relation to them.

The pipe below the stopcock looks large. What's it made of? plastic, iron, lead?

can you estimate its diameter? is there anything printed on it?

please photograph the downpipe and the gulley, if there is one, and any signs of damp, or of cracked, patched or sunken paving or ground near it.

When a gulley is cracked in the ground (very common) the water runs into the ground and does not visibly overflow.

That cable is very untidy. Have you had a kitchen fitter masquerading as an electrician?

Thank you so much for your replies. I will measure and draw info ASAP tomorrow.

It is most likely leaking from the packing gland on your stop cock. Very common on these isolating taps. It is something that you can tighten yourself if you want, until your plumber comes out. In between the handle and the body of the tap, there should be a hexagonal part. This loosens over time, due to vibrations of the water flowing through, and if you tighten, it may stop it from leaking.

Older, I’ll be so relieved if it’s the leaky stop cock causing it-I just can’t believe I wouldn’t have noticed it before! Good to know just a bit of water could cause damp like this.

Thank you Muchly. I’ll try that today. We’d left it dripping a couple of days to see how much was coming out but no need to waste water now.

PigletJohn, thank you for saying you’ll take a look. Here’s the floor plan (not to scale!) I hope it shows everything you need. Not sure which pipe you mean: There is temporary plumbing in for the washing machine which is plastic. Then there are two pipes-one cold, one hot-which run along the top. I think they’re copper.

PigletJohn, I’ve just worked out which pipe you mean! The water inlet is pretty corroded but we think it is copper. It’s about 2cm diameter-sorry, I’m not very good at measuring-couldn’t find a tape measure/ruler so had to use the measuring edge of a compass!

Here’s the picture of the outside. We didn’t paint it-it was like that when we bought the house-would have much preferred red brick!

There’s the roof downpipe on the left and the waste pipe on the right. The door you can see is into the ‘utility room’.

The bricks look awful! If we need brick work replacing at the bottom of our house, how does that even work? Would insurance help? It must be so expensive😟😫

Looking at your picture, the highest point of damp on the wet wall is not close to the dripping stopcock nor to the suspicious downpipes. The wet wall and the highest point are usually close to the source.

It is possible that water from one of more of the leaks is soaking into the concrete floor, and some kind of waterproof concealing treatment prevents it from showing elsewhere, but I would be looking closer to the high point. Start with the adjacent radiator pipe and behind the kitchen cabinet on the other side of the wet patch.

BTW the external paving by your soil pipe and gulley look to me like they have sunk and been patched, so I expect they are cracked and leaking in the ground. This is quite normal. Somebody once told me they had seen an old clay gulley that wasn't cracked and leaking.

Have you got a water meter?

Have you got a cold tank in the loft?

BTW the black paint at plinth level is usually done to hide damp. It actually makes it worse because it prevents evaporation.

As for the pipes, the copper pipes at your stopcock are 15mm and the pipe they are jointed into, below, coming out of the floor, looks noticeably bigger. If doesn't look like copper to me.

Try it with a magnet, it might be iron.

It might be 21mm external diameter, which is amusingly called half-inch iron. It is likely to be eroded and rusted in the floor, especially at the elbow where it turns from horizontal to vertical.

Try to work out how the cold supply gets to your kitchen sink, and if it stops when you close that stopcock you already found.

P.s.

On the outside, I think the cracked and broken concrete has been cunningly disguised as crazy paving.

Going by the way you've described the damp running along the inside wall and the few patches on the wall I can see, I would personally think it's a good idea to get a company to come and do a drainage survey for you. They have cameras that they can stick down your drains to check for any cracks and most drainage companies (dynorod etc) can come and do them for a fairly decent price and fix most cracks there and then. The other possibility may be that you have a leak on your main inlet pipe. You can check this yourself by isolating the water at the stopcock you showed us in the picture and checking at the dial on your isolator on the road.

You’re right! It’s iron. Oops.

Yes, the kitchen sink is fed by that stopcock.

We do have a cold tank in the loft.

The water company came round and told us we’re not allowed a meter-they spoke to my husband and he can’t remember why.

Behind the kitchen cabinets on that wall there are no water pipes. Only gas and electric.

How do we check the radiator for a leak? Everyone that’s come round has said that it’s not that but I don’t know how they could tell.

Maybe we’re not allowed a meter because they suspected a leak 🤔

Muchly, thanks for the Dynorod tip. Sounds like we might need them.

Not sure how much help the isolater would be? It serves 3 or 4 houses not just ours. Would that work?

The radiator pipe looks like it goes into the floor. Is it a concrete floor?

Does your boiler have a pressure gauge on it?

Climb into the loft with a torch and some string. You will have a large and possibly a small water tank. Lift the lids. Are either of the ball cocks dripping? If so, it may be because they are topping up the water due to a leak.

Tie the float to a convenient piece of timber above so that it cannot drop and open the valve.

Photograph the water level in each, wait for an hour or more, using absolutely no water from taps or flushing WCs. Has the level dropped? The small tank (if any) you can leave tied up for a day or two.

You may also be interested to look into the tanks for drowned spiders or pigeons, or for rubble or a layer of rusty mud, especially in the small one. If either of them lacks a close fitting plastic lid, measure it so you can buy one. Don't stir up the mud.

You can test at the kitchen sink for a leaking water supply pipe using a glass of water.

I would have thought that it's most likely the pipework to the radiator that's leaking, given that that's the closest thing to the damp patch.

Here's the glass of water. I couldn't be bothered to type it.

www.water-loss-solutions.co.uk/leak-detection-through-syphonic-cup-test