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.

I just spotted that this used to be a bathroom, so there may be disused pipes remaining, perhaps in the walls, floor or ceiling. Do you remember where the bath taps used to be?

I love the syphonic leak test! Wouldn’t it have to be a pretty big leak to work though?
Same with the cold water tank off for the day....Will still find a day when we can do it though. Worth a try-Thank you!
Yes it’s a concrete floor😔

The bath and sink taps were on the stopcock side of the room.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they hadn’t been capped/rerouted properly. We’ve had a few problems with the jobs done by the builders’ plumber. He came out twice to ‘fix’ the constant airlock issue and low flow on taps upstairs, telling us we may need a new system.

It was all fixed by a nice retired guy in a day: airlock bend in new pipes rerouted and swarf/debris cleaned out of the flush and taps- all shoddy jobs by the first guy. Has had us constantly wondering what we’ll find next 🙁

I'd look at both sides of the wall with the "mountain" shaped wet patch, scrape off the paint and wallpaper, see which side is wetter/higher, chip away the plaster at skirting level and at the top of the mountain, expecting to find a source.

If a damp-proofing bodge has previously been applied to hide the damp, without curing it, the source might be elsewhere, but in a mountain it is usually near the top, and in a half-moon it is usually near the middle.

Feel and scrape the concrete floor where the radiator pipe goes into it, as well.

I now don't feel any doubt that your soil pipe and underground clay joints are broken, because the external concrete is uneven and patched. If you know a reliable plumber ask him to look. Plumbers don't like digging up drains because they are weedy little fellows with petal-soft hands, they usually get a builder's labourer to do it.

I can't understand why your builder and surveyor didn't notice. It's very common.

Your neighbours will have similar drains so some of them may have already investigated, especially if they have dug new patios or built extensions or murdered their husbands.

The drains though are some distance from the wet patch so I don't think they are the source.

Oh no😔 there is no way we will be able to afford to get that work done on outside of house and also take out kitchen units, do the search and then get it all fixed back afterwards and maybe still not solve it.

Do leak specialist companies actually work? Do insurance companies help? Ours has already said it’s just rising damp.

I have a final question. If we were to leave the damp alone and just live with it (it doesn’t smell and no mould) will it damage anything structurally?

digging out drains is not a big job.

mending or replacing leaky pipes is not a big job once you've located them.

If, as I think, the wet wall has a plumbing related cause inside the house, you can deal with that first and do the drains later.

If you wish, and if the plumbing fault is buried soimewhere under a concrete floor, you could run new pipes (they don't have to follow the same route as the old) and abandon the old. If some of the rooms in your house have wooden floors with a void beneath, pipes can conveniently be run beneath them. Modern supply pipes are made of blue plastic, which is flexible enough to push under floors and bend upwards where you need it.

Are you still in touch with your good plumber?

Thank you for all your help.

Our plumber only does remedial small stuff now as he says other stuff is too stressful. Last time he was here I showed him the damp but he said he didn’t know what to do and couldn’t help. In fact, that’s what every person who has seen our damp has said.

I’m going to chase the report from the insurance people and call some leak detector people.

Can I just double check before going down the costly leak detection route: the insurer person’s point that the plaster had certain mineral salts in it and therefore had to be rising damp and not a leak isn’t true is it?

it may have groundwater minerals in it. These will occur if water has soaked into the wall from wet ground. However yours is an old house built with lime mortar (possibly also cow material in the plaster) so it depends what minerals they found.

The water company can identify leaks by presence of chlorine (= tapwater); soap (=bathwater); leafmould (=gutter water); mud (=groundwater). This is usually done when you have pools of water that you can bale out into a bucket, typically in the space under the floor. I don't know if your person did an equivalent test. I presume (don't know) that they can also detect chemicals and metal content in radiator water (BTW turn off your leaking towel rail at both ends. If it stops leaking, does your boiler stop losing pressure?)

"Rising damp" is actually extremely rare, despite what people who sell "damp-proofing" would like you to believe.

In my experience (apart from my next-door neighbour whose cellar floods in unusually high tides) damp has always been caused by condensation, due to wet washing or bad ventilation; or from plumbing leaks. I agree that houses on hillsides or beside streams can be different.

Long ago, I was digging out a cracked and leaking gully when the hole I was standing in filled with warm soapy water. The next door neighbour, who also had a cracked and leaking gully, had just pulled out their bathplug.

If you are in a terrace with a shared drain "common sewer" running behind the terrace serves several houses, you might get the water co to inspect for leaks and damage. Tell them you suspect a leak due to cracked and sunken paving. They aren't responsible for repairing the first bit attached to your house, but if you ply them with tea and doughnuts, they will have seen enough of them to offer an expert opinion. Drain men like to sit in open manholes, with sewage running over their boots, while they drink tea and eat doughnuts. Unless you stop them, they will tell you amusing anecdotes.

Once you have fixed any leaks etc - make sure you have good ventilation - as in hole drilled through exterior wall and extractor fan or correct vent fitting put into the hole. You can get the drill bit used to make hole and fitting to be same measurement.

@PigletJohn it's not that us plumbers don't like getting our hands dirty, it's just beneath us on certain jobs 😁. Personally @Madmussells, I would still get a drainage check done, as there is a possibility on a house of your age, that one of those waste pipes that go into the ground, near the back door, runs underneath your house and if so, has very possibly broken. The other thing that may be worth your while doing, is getting your own moisture meter and checking the floor and walls at certain points with it. It is a tough one to say for definite by any one of us without coming and doing an inspection. So many things can contribute, that it can be a case of eliminating things one by one until moisture levels go down

Yep, we have a sewer that runs about a foot away from our rear wall. Sometimes it smells in our garden so we’ve had the company out to unblock the sewer beneath our manhole cover. It’s at least 1.5 feet beneath ground level though so wouldn’t have thought it could be that could it? Architect said not sure if the downpipe goes into the sewer or if it has its own route into the garden.

I’d say more like 3ft below actually.

where does the kitchen sink waste go?

It goes into an open topped drain that probably goes into the sewer. It’s quite far from the damp site though-approx 3m along from the downpipe.

I have another question. I know, so many! Can I tell from looking at the outside wall if the damp course is ruined? All those soggy bricks at the bottom with what looks like no pointing between them...We often have ants and mice in the utility room. Are they coming through the brickwork?

Your house is most likely built with lime mortar, and you most likely have a leaking drain, so most likely the lime has been washed out of the joints and the bricks have had long term wet. Wet bricks are prone to spall when frosted.

When you dig out the drains and expose the base of the wall, hose the mud out of the joints and pack them tightly with cement mortar.

Take a few pics of the wall showing the DPC.

Slate lasts around five million years so probably not ruined. The concrete floor might be damp, though. Unless it is quite new it will have no dpm. If it has moved there may be gaps under the skirting.

Hmmm, for the DPC how can I tell what I’m taking pictures of? I’ll just take a few pictures tomorrow and hope it shows up.

I’m quite excited at the thought of digging up outside and redoing the mortar. It’s been bothering me. I think I know a nice builder that might be able to do that for me when all this rains gone.

Concrete floor being damp sounds bad... do we need to do something about that? Could that be what is travelling up the walls? Perhaps that area is just more porous and is wicking it up?

The DPC is almost certain to be one or two layers of slate embedded in a slightly thicker mortar bed in the wall, nine inches above where the ground level used to be when the house was built. Sometimes it is easier to spot under or beside a doorstep. Unless your house is on a slope or the builder was eccentric, once you have found it, it will be at the same height all round your house.

Old concrete floors with no DPM are usually damp. Unless you have a leak it might not be damp enough to worry about. When you used to do the washing in a copper, and swab or scrub the floor daily, you wouldn't notice a damp floor.

If, in an old house, an original wooden floor has been removed and a concrete one laid, it is usually because there was an unresolved severe wet problem and the floor rotted. It is to be expected that the wet problem is still under the floor, so the concrete and/or walls will continue to be wet until it is fixed. If might be a groundwater problem (and all the houses in the street have it) but I think a plumbing leak more likely. I am annoyed at the builders of the past who poured concrete over a plumbing leak, making it much more difficult to repair.

Any sturdy woman can dig up a yard and repair drains and brickwork, but people might fall into the hole.

Modern breakers can take up a concrete floor in less than a day. Think of roadmenders or people laying pipes. It is probably not very thick.

It might be a bit noisy and make some dust.

We had a damp internal wall and could see a separate damp external wall.
Tried all sorts of people to help but in the end a leak detection survey costing about £400 established a leaking overflow. The tiniest drip every few seconds. Must have been happening for a very long time.
£15k insurance payout to repair the damage.

The leak detection was very thorough. Good luck.

Hi PigletJohn, thank you for staying and trying to help! Here are some pictures: one of the damp course under the kitchen (new addition in perhaps the 80s?) It looks a bit ropey!

The other 2 are the external wall closest to the damp. If it’s the same level as the new one, it’s one and a half bricks up but I can’t see it.

Thank you PETRONELLAS, I’m waiting for prices from 2 leak detection companies but this is the 3rd day and although I chased yesterday and they phoned back and promised an email, it hasn’t arrived yet. They sounded super busy.

Yours looks like it might be lead.

If damaged, a builder can slot the mortar joint and insert a new bit, then reach the mortar.

Better than chemical injection.

Tarry material is also occasionally seen as a DPC.

Modern usage is roll of black PVC.

The wet and uneven paving reinforces my opinion of broken drain.

Look out for red worms, or wild tomato plants.

@Madmussells If you are worried about a leak, it may be a good idea to see if you can hire a thermal imaging camera. It may be useful to run across your floor and walls. If you are able to get one, what you should be looking for, is cold patches. Though as @PigletJohn has said, I would suspect something with drainage personally.