Damp in 1850s house

[Bloomsburyreader]

Extremely grateful for answers I have been given when asking about what type of flooring we have in our new house but I thought it sensible to open a separate thread asking about the damp issues.

When we first looked at the house we had the place surveyed and were told there was some rising damp, not surprising, we were told, there is no damp proof course in an old house, but also that as the property had been empty and unheated for the whole winter there had been further damage -ie not all the damp was due to rising damp.

The condition of our mortgage was that we had a retention and we would have to prove the damp was sorted before getting the full mortgage. This is because the lenders surveyor spotted the damp on the valuation visit.

They asked us to get a quote to sort the damp and so the retention is the cost of the quote given. The quote for remedial works was for cementious tanking to be applied and then a specialist membrane placed under new plasterboard.

I get that this is supposed to sort a problem but sticking plaster over the top doesn't stop the damp problem and we feel like the walls will just be dry on the outside but wet on the inside and slowly crumbling away. Walls in the original part of the house, where the main problem is, are 40-50cm thick

Today I peeled off the wallpaper (thick vinyl stuff that delightfully kept the water inside the walls) and I discovered that there has already been tanking half way up the walls. I think this has been done more than once! So we know it isn't a long term solution.

We are thinking of pulling out of the damp proofing appointment (even though we had to wait 6 weeks does it) as it does not seem the right solution. We want to find out what causes the damp in the first place (we have dug down one of the flowerbeds as that was far too high but the wall by that was not the worst).

Am I right to be pulling out of the appointment or should we just go ahead with the tanking and membranes? It feels that way would be saving up problems for years down the line although we are likely to move area in 5 years so may just sell before this becomes an issue! Anyone know if our mortgage becomes invalidated if we don't go ahead?

Pic is of reception room where you can see that tanking has been done already

Pigletjohn is a good source of information but in case he is on holiday look for sources of water guttering drains , rising damp is mainly a scam.

I don't think thats tanking it could of just had a chemical damp course 3ft plaster taken off .Drilled and injected at every few inch intervals .

if it has had a chemical damp causer they last about 25/30 year and just need redoing

I'm sure you'll get loads of helpful advice on here - or you could do what I did with my 1850's house ( extensions / alterations all through the years to the 1980's) and get an independent damp survey. I paid £500 for mine last year with someone who is not affiliated to any damp repair rip off business.

It was well worth the money, I have a 38 page document with all the problem areas graded 'Immediate, Urgent, Necessary, Desirable' .

I had already decided to cancel the damp injection company who I had booked to repair problems which came up on the survey when we bought the house. They miraculously had the same phone number and address of the people who had done previous work which had an existing 25 year guarantee - however they were not affiliated with them at all and wanted £5000 for the works.

Although we've had a few problems getting trades people (we are getting specialists to remove external silicone paint and cement render and replace with lime products) we are now on the way to solving our damp issues. Not all the recommendations have been horrendously expensive either, some things we have done ourselves quite easily.

You need a proper survey to identify the cause of damp. This should be done by an independent surveyor (not one that will give you a free survey and they do the work).

Old houses need to breathe, tanking is a bad idea. Given it's been done before, it clearly hasn't worked. Rising damp is actually very rare, it's usually because of leaking pipes etc.

Hutton and Rostron are good heritage surveyors who understand old buildings. (I don't work for them but have used them myself).

Ps, what are the external walls- brick or stone?

The original house is stone but has been rendered- am not sure when this was done, whether it was done in the 60s when the brick extension was done or whether it was already rendered- there are several other rendered properties nearby so is in keeping, but I fear that it was done in the 60s to hide the brick extension. We are semi detached in an L shape and the other part of the house is in original stone. I have dug away some of the damp plaster on the right hand side of the fireplace in the room in the previous pic and it goes down to the same type of stone.

We are now just hoping that if the house was rendered in the 60s that this was not done in concrete as we guess this would prevent the house from breathing too.

We have definitely decided to pull out of the tanking etc. We are happy to live without decor for a while and to allow the house to dry out. We are also keen to use proper breathable materials like lime plastering.

The survey was ordered by the mortgage lender, organised by our mortgage broker, recommended by the agent as we and the mortgage broker were 2 hrs away. It was done by the company who quoted for the work and who we had booked to carry out the work. It does not address the cause of the damp at all which is why we had started to query it in the first place. We will definitely take PPs recommendation to get an independent survey.

However spending a few days in the property preparing it for the work we thought was going to be carried out has been eye opening for us.

The worst damp is at the front of the other reception room. Here we discovered a flower bed had got really high. Having read about bridging damp courses, (even though we knew this house would not have a damp course) it made sense to lower this so we dug that right down. We can now see where the render finishes and are now just below that. We thought we would need to pave this area.

However, the heavens have just opened and we have observed that the guttering on the roof above is blocked and the water is just pouring straight down, bouncing onto the storm porch roof and then directly down onto the earth in front of this very bad damp patch. No wonder the wall is so wet. This wasn't even suggested by the damp company, they just wanted to tank the inside and allow the problem to continue!

This seems to be happening round the back as well and may be involved in why we have damp on the back walls shown in the previous picture.

The walls are, according to the survey, plaster and lathe. Attached is a pic of the very damp plaster near where the water from the gutter is landing. Second is a pic of the back wall where I have revealed the original stonework (damp, but not as damp). You can see this area has previously had some kind of damp proof paint applied.

I agree with the damp survey. I have had one twice and it's been money well spent both times

First time I booked one I had 3 damp specialist coming round quoting for injecting stuff but I had a suspicion the damp was coming from next door

Ordered a damp survey and we managed to prove that next door's bathroom was installed incorrectly and the pipes were leaking into our wall. Rather than fix the problem they had it treated for damp which pushed the problem to us. I would have been none the wiser had we not had the survey and would have wasted thousands having it ranked!

We got one now on the house we are buying (1860-1880) and the man thinks there are a lot of leaking pipes so we will take the plaster off the walls and fix them first.

If you can find someone who is really good at spotting the issues, it's so worth it!

Tanked not ranked!

There is lots of really good information on this in the period property forum. In old buildings, you need to stop sources of water ingress, like leaky gutters and then help the walls to breath by removing any non breathable surfaces from them. They should eventually dry out but it can take a very long time especially if you have thick walls. There won't be a quick fix for this unfortunately but the first step is to sort the gutters and remove the tanking and see if that helps. What are the internal floors like?

@Geneticsbunny we're having a bit of a shocker with our floor as well - see my other thread

What is this floor and how do I remove it? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/4310560-what-is-this-floor-and-how-do-i-remove-it

If the house has been rendered that could be causing problems if its a modern render. Needs to be proper lime render on old houses.

www.architectsjournal.co.uk/archive/rising-damp-is-a-myth-says-former-rics-chief

There are a number of articles online now about how rising damp and chemical injections are a waste of time. They just hide the problems rather than solve them.

Leaking gutters, wrong and cracked render and high outside ground levels seem to be the worst culprits.

Good luck in getting it sorted.

I had a Positive Input Insulation system fitted in my 1780s house.

Lots of damp, wet to touch throughout the house. Dare I say that most of it is drying out...

This explains how it works

www.envirovent.com/products/positive-input-ventilation-piv/

Injecting a damp proof course doesn't even work in stone properties. Honestly, the whole industry is an unregulated racket.

The cement render will not be doing the house any favours.

Cancel the company- you may as well just burn your hard earned money.

Glad you have looked at guttering.

Look at french drains for outside (google). Don't pave up to the walls.

Have you seen this www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/managing-damp-in-old-buildings.html
I haven’t read it all but looks like an interesting take on the issue.

@Bloomsburyreader. Yes just spotted the other thread. Sounds like a bit of a nightmare!

Tanking can make things worse. One of our rooms was a little damp, someone had made an attempt to tank it, on the advice of a surveyor, we took the taking off and it cured the damp practically overnight. I suggest you get a specialist surveyor with a house that age. We used Heritage House. Have a read of their website for an alternative view on damp in old houses. We certainly found they were 100% right about ours. www.heritage-house.org/

@whataboutbob

Have you seen this www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/managing-damp-in-old-buildings.html I haven’t read it all but looks like an interesting take on the issue.

We got them to do a survey on our house. The best money we have ever spent. They were dead right about our old house. When we bought it we were told it had damp and needed a DPC and tanking throughout- we thought that was absolutely the wrong things to do. So we got them in after we bought, and they tested the walls properly, and indeed, tanking and a DPC would have been unnecessary and a disaster for the structure of the house- and it wouldn't have cured the problem, because it was almost all condensation, plus, ironically some tanking that actually needed removing . Took their advice, cost us a fraction of the price of doing the tanking and replastering, and it cured the damp. We had the advantage of not having to convince a lender before we bought, as we'd already sold the previous house and were old codgers with no mortgage. The HH surveyer drilled into walls to take brick samples, though, you can't expect most vendors to agree to that before a sale.

Haven't read full thread sorry as rounding up toddlers to bed. Just to say we have old old cottage and used normal plaster boards in our living room about 4yrs ago with some kind of damp proof (I'll find details if needs be) and they're pulling off the walls now and we can see damp coming back. Exactly what you feared is happening here, walls wet behind plaster. In bedrooms we used lime plaster, no tanking/ damp proofing , cost a fortune but is PERFECT, and done at same time. Also had to take all render off outside and repoint in the stone with lime. So 100% don't tank, use breathable like on old houses would be my experience

@Geneticsbunny

There is lots of really good information on this in the period property forum. In old buildings, you need to stop sources of water ingress, like leaky gutters and then help the walls to breath by removing any non breathable surfaces from them. They should eventually dry out but it can take a very long time especially if you have thick walls. There won't be a quick fix for this unfortunately but the first step is to sort the gutters and remove the tanking and see if that helps. What are the internal floors like?

Yep. One job I have left is that I have to remove the cement pointing and reinstate lime mortar pointing.

Get a survey from someone who knows old properties to advise properly. We have a similar vintage here! Damp proof course is not the solution. I highly recommend speaking to Heritage House and getting them round to survey and provide the right recommendations.

We had damp in our house similar age property brick and render.
We actually found the problem was 2 fold, the floor around an extension hadn't been done properly allowing water to get in and also the house hadn't been allowed to breathe properly so the damp was mostly condensation.

We stripped back to brick work, installed ventilation points from cavity to external, put membrane under the floor and redid all the joists so they were where they should be. Installed condensation damp thing (it slows it down until the heat of the room evaporates it off or something along those lines). Then left a gap before building frames with wall insulation panels.
It has fixed the problem we do have to make sure the rooms worse effected have proper heating.

Like others we were originally given a crazy quote of 25k it actually cost us 4k to sort (we did a lot of the donkey work ourselves)

It does take some time for a house that's been afflicted with condensation to dry out after you sort out the ventilation. Ours was so damp that after we moved in that August it felt so cold we needed a quilt plus heavy wool blankets on the bed. Once the house had dried out, which it had done to a large extent in a few months, we only needed a quilt, even when it was snowing outside (and we always keep a window open!) In our case the condensation had been 'because' extensive use of an ancient gas fire on top of the central heating, a totally blocked extractor in the kitchen combined with a lot of steamy cooking, and not nearly enough ventilation. Once you get rid of the moisture, the same actual temperature feels about 10 degrees warmer.

So grateful for all these replies. We had discovered the heritage house website on Saturday when investigating the reason for the damp in the first place, and it was that that got us further convinced that the damp proofing company were charlatans. We have cancelled on them (at the 11th hour, it turns out, as if we had delayed even till the end of the day today we would not have given the 5 days necessary cancellation notice and would have ended up paying 20% of the bill to tell them to keep their mitts off our house!!).

We have also spoken to Sarah at heritage house and are booking in a phone consultation asap as a full survey could not take place till September as they are so busy.

Interesting to hear you have not actually had to remove the render yet @BlueMongoose but that the house is drying out anyway. We would love to remove and repoint in lime mortar. The 1960s extension is brick so we would still have to render this but we may be able to clad this is the same sort of stone if funds allow further down the line.

Today I also called a local guttering company and as luck would have it he was on a job round the corner so he popped round to see the place and used a GoPro on a stick. The gutter that was leaking worst is blocked with a lump of concrete! He was so helpful to talk to as it turns out he is originally a stonemason by trade! He confirmed that the render is indeed cement and he even looked at the worst part of wet plaster inside the house and identified it as gypsum plaster which I read on the Heritage House website is also a nono.

We have a builder coming on Wednesday to start on the wood floors in the bedrooms that are badly bowed so we need to clear out as the house won't really be habitable whilst he is working but I am raring to go with removing all this tanking. We need to be living here from the end of august before school starts but we are now expecting a long time where the downstairs is just a shell (and some of the upstairs where the walls are damp from the failed seal around the flue letting the water in) . However I am so in love with this house already and I can't wait to make it right again, I am only going to be working 2 or 3 days a week so this is going to be my other job!

Sorry - should have said we found heritage house on Sunday- only yesterday morning! Thank goodness we found it in time.

@Bloomsburyreader - the passion for your house and this project rings through! I have the feeling that with the care and research you are putting into this you will have a lovely home at the end. I hope you keep sharing your story.

We have a small amount of damp in our 1890's stone cottage just on one west facing wall. We are going to get the pointing re-done in lime and repaint inside as the paint looks like it has plasticiser in it as the damp 'bubbles' away from the wall. It won't be until next spring now - so it could be a cold damp winter ahead!