What paint for cold/ possibly damp interior brick work

[Noidea2024]

We have an inglenook fireplace with a fully open chimney. As a result, when it rains hard, water comes downs it's also on the the exterior wall of an old house, so gets very cold and we can't have fires as often as it would probably need to keep it warm and totally dry.

When we moved in, the brickwork in the inglenook was painted white and it all looked fine. I repainted 18 months ago, using masonary paint, as advised by a decorator. Although it looked great at first, over time it has flaked and there is a constant renewal of 'powdered' paint on the floor, where it is coming away.

Someone has suggested removing as much of the old paint as can be wire-brushed, then repainting with mineral paint. I've researched, but struggled to find evidence that mineral paint will help. does anyone have any experience/ thoughts about this?

(We are planning to put small electric heaters at the edge of the inglenook to try and prevent it get so cold/ damp, which has worked in another room, but the fireplace is no colder/ damper than it was before we repainted)

Nothing will be any good until you cure the damp. Use the fireplace?

I do get that *TizerorFizz *
and it makes complete sense. That's why we are trying to install small heaters. Unfortunately we can't use it more than weekly as it takes a lot of time to get going due to poor draw (we've worked with chimney sweep to improve, but it's not helped much), so we don't have the time on a daily basis.

I am also aware, though, that the paint didn't flake before and it would have been slightly damp then too. Hence looking to see if mineral paint might stay put while we continue trying to sort the issue.

Any heat from the heaters would just go straight up the chimney surely.
So you'd be wasting your money (a lot) and not fixing the problem.

Have you thought about blocking it off completely and making it just decorative?

Install a cowl on top of the chimney! Lets air in but not rain. Chimneys don’t need to be wide at the top. Our chimney has two small chimney pits like tell inverted buckets. Never had damp. Other chimney is similar.

I don't understand why you don't cap off or put a cowl on the chimney if you think that's the source of the damp and you don't want to use it? If the damp is penetrating from outside is the pointing in good nick?

We don't want it sealed off completely, and attempts with cowls have led to a few issues. We spoke to a number of chimney sweeps, all of whom advised different types. When we trialed one, we had an issue with the fire drawing less well, leading to the room being quite Smokey. The second one had a spinny thing, but that drew heat even when we didn't have a fire. Basically, it's an unusual design and nobody seems to know what will help.

From a damp perspective, we actually think the bigger issue is with that part of the room being so cold/ exterior wall away from heat source. that's why we have considered the electric heaters, which would just be the tiny ones and at the side of the inglenooks, they would be a good meter plus from the chimney.