Penetrating damp in Gable wall of 1890 property

super_ski

Hi,

I own an end of terrace town house (4 stories into the loft) in West Hampstead which has damp!
We are experiencing damp in the loft conversion where the ceiling meets the gable wall.
From outside you can see the top 1m of the gable wall is still wet.

Last year i had the gable & rear wall repointed and also the roof was checked and lead flashings were replaced.

When it rained really heavily in Autumn there was no damp (but i dont know if the gable wall dried out), however after the snow storms we are no seeing damp coming though and that top 1m of the gable wall is still wet.

Given we are at the end of the terrace the gable wall is prone to so much weathering.

We've spent c10k in doing the building works this year and I am annoyed that we still have damp.

Any clues about how to fix this?
Or which companies someone could recommend to help to fix.

I don't really want to foam insulate the roof/gable wall as this doesn't allow for any flexibility in the property moving - and we are as we are at the end of terrace.

any help/advice would be welcome

thanks.

mbga9pgf

Basic I know, but I take it you have checked your guttering?

It could be left over from before doing your flashing/roof. I would agree that foam insulation is not the way to go; we have it in our home and it doesnt stop the damp from coming in, which we have in the top corner of our bedroom.

Unfortunately, living in an older property has its downsides; our rented dates back to mid 50s, yet suffers as if it was built 200 years ago!

super_ski

There isn't actually any guttering on the gable wall.
The gable wall goes higher than where the roof starts (i think you call it a parapit wall?!)

How can i determine if the problem is penetrating damp from the gable wall weathering or from the roof flashings leakings?

mbga9pgf

If the flashing is leaking, you would expect the penetrating damp to go all the way to the top of the wall. The Parepet wall has to have some drainage at some point, otherwise you would have a mini lake at the top of your roof (unless there are gaps in the brizkwork for drainage). Only other thingI can think of is its leaking through the mortar joints. But I would have thought the flashing would have covered the top of the brickwork as well?

Is the building stone or brick?

super_ski

We have the usual draining at the front & back of the property.
any rain water that hits the roof runs down into these gutters.

there is no separate drain on the side gable wall

building is made from stone.

flashings do cover the top of brick work and we have cement render on top.

the fact that the top 1m of the gable wall is still wet is worrying - how can this be protected from more rain and how can i protect the internal walls from not being prone to the damp?