Damp but not motorhome

We had a Victorian proterty (one owner from new believe it or not - we found the owner's indentures in a cupboard) which had rising damp because of no damp course. There was some sort of grant from the local council who came and did a survey and said yes we are eligible and they gave us a few companies that would do the job properly. What they did was to remove the mortar from under the bricks above ground level, along a length of about two metres at a time. Then they inserted a plastic membrane dpc and new mortar, let it set and move on to the next two metres. They had to do this inside and outside as they were solid two-brick walls. The plaster inside had to be removed up to a height of one metre, and when the job was done it was re-plastered of course. The end result was a continuous proper plastic dpc all the way round. It might be worth you asking your local council if there is a grant, and you can plead poor old lady in bad health and this is making your chest cough and splutter.
 
gasgas said:
We had a Victorian proterty (one owner from new believe it or not - we found the owner's indentures in a cupboard) which had rising damp because of no damp course. There was some sort of grant from the local council who came and did a survey and said yes we are eligible and they gave us a few companies that would do the job properly. What they did was to remove the mortar from under the bricks above ground level, along a length of about two metres at a time. Then they inserted a plastic membrane dpc and new mortar, let it set and move on to the next two metres. They had to do this inside and outside as they were solid two-brick walls. The plaster inside had to be removed up to a height of one metre, and when the job was done it was re-plastered of course. The end result was a continuous proper plastic dpc all the way round. It might be worth you asking your local council if there is a grant, and you can plead poor old lady in bad health and this is making your chest cough and splutter.
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Worth a look. Thank you
 
An Ex-spurt is a drip under pressure.
 
From what you describe it sounds like your problem is rising damp. this is typically caused by not having a damp course but often there IS a damp course but its bypassed by render, plaster soil, paving etc, if ANYTHING bridges the damp course then essentially the damp course useless.
I've renovated our current cottage from the late 1700s, it had no damp course whatsoever, I researched a lot and eventually rejected the injected creams and fluids etc and decided to saw through the mortar joint with a masonary saw and inset a conventional plastic DPC, 1 meter at a time and worked my way around the whole house. Long winded but it'll last forever.

Whatever you put on the exterior serves two different purposes :
1 it should repel water from getting into the masonary.
2 it should allow water that's already captured in the masonry to evaporate.
Because the path INTO the wall is done by water in a liquid state and the path out of the wall is done much more slowly by evaporation it's easy to make things worse by applying treatments. Be careful when 'sealing' or painting the exterior because if the 'treatment' allows more water to penetrate during wet weather than the amount of water that can evaporate during dry weather then you'll obviously end up with a wet wall. Cracked masonry paint is excellent at letting water in and trapping it there.
 
I had a old stone cottage once, drilled the wall at 45 deg downward every foot or so along, and then filled with a solution of silicone thinned down a bit. did about 3/4 fills and it cured the problem.
 
A few years ago a mate bought a property to rent out,it had rising damp in two outside 9" walls( brick back to back no cavity) After a bit of asking around,we found local tool hire companies hire pumps and the waterproofer is very cheap,it's a simple matter of drilling 2 X 10mm holes per brick and using the pump ti inject the fluid ( it's a very simple small pump unit) we did bot walls ( inside and out because double skin) in a day and a half... obviously no warranty as if done by a specialist) but I was in that area 10+ yrs and no further problems,if you hav a capable relative or a small local builder or even handyman it shouldn't cost a great deal
 
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