Damp kitchen tiles

humphriess

Hi, I have recently bought a house that needed complete renovation. The kitchen has quarry tiles that were covered in cement, newspaper and general dirt. About a month ago i cleaned the gunk off the tiles using a combination of traditional soap and water scrubbing and cement acid. Since then i have noticed that an area by the back door about 1 m2 ofen looks wet. When you touch the tiles they are not wet but the grouting inbetween the tiles looks wet and the same for the cracks along the cracked tiles. This usually happens when it rains. The majority of the kitchen is ok. We bought the house about 7 months ago. I'm assuming that i didn't notice it before as the floor was too dirty. Could this just be a cold patch? Or my worst fear will the kitchen floor need digging up and a damp proof course fitted. The floor underneath is concrete i assume, i'ts an extension on the original house, i have no idea when it was built or if any damp proof was fitted, or if there are any pipes underneath it. We don't have the money to get the kitchen dug up at the moment (thinking at least a grand?), but don't want to fit cupboards and floor if i it is a serious problem. (walls in this room are single cavity if this is of any relevance?)
would appreciate any thoughts/advice
Thanks
Sarah

Pitlanepiglet

Check the plumbing under your sink etc. We had a leaking pipe from the sink, but the first sign was a section of floor in the kitchen doorway which was obviously wet, the water had migrated under the tiles and showed there.

wallbash

My first thought , check the back door.

humphriess

hey, so had some builders in, worst case scenario come true. House built on ash. no DPM. One builder said that we'd have to did up the beautiful quarry tiles in the dining room as well.
We really don't want to do this as we had planned on restoring them. We are thinking we wasn't planning on covering the dining room with a carpet and there is no visible problem currently so are hoping to keep it. Any thoughts?
we have been quoted about £1500 for the digging up the floor option (kitchen only) we don't have this money but have to do something as i have already lived for 4 months without a kitchen can't last much longer.
What about a surface damp proof membrane? Could we just paint this on ourselves? We realise that when we tile this would then mean there would be a 'step' to the kitchen - but can live with this. Or could we remove the tiles and then put a surface DPC down so that the floor would be more level?
Any advice on how to solve this quickly and cheaply would be appreciated.
Many Thanks

wallbash

How did the builders come to this idea. ??
How do they know its built on ash ?

Why is it only damp in one area ?
I think I would want to know a lot more before rushing into anything.

phill99

I agree with wallbash. If it is only damp round the door, something tells me there lies the problem. If you had damp coming up through the floor, logically it would be showing itself in other areas. Its unlikely that it would just fail in this area.

dander

If there's no problem in most of the house, even if the house is built on ash, I'd be wary of tearing everything up and installing modern damp protection in an old house - that can cause more problems than it solves. Damp proof courses are just the modern British way of doing things. In the right circumstances, houses can be completely damp free without them.

If it's damp in one small area only, as others have said, it suggests that the conditions in that area are wetter than the rest of the house - so likely not caused by general ground water. What's outside the back door - do you have patio or path that's not draining away from the house properly - maybe a downpipe from the gutter that could be leaking or feeding straight into the ground?

humphriess

thanks all for the advice.
Outside is a patio. i'll have a look outside when its light tomorrow.

wallbash

My question still stands ( these might be trustworthy builders ) they have seen the problem , we have not.
Did they investigate outside. ??
Did they check the door?

( if its an orig tile floor would not expect underground pipe work)

How do they know whats under the tiles?

nina_2

Hi humphriess, we have a 3 bed end of terrace Victorian house with an original quarry tile floor in our kitchen. In May we had a kitchen fitted, which was ordered last December!
Our choice of new flooring was an aqualock style laminate as our quarry tile floor had seen the best days prior to our living here! Well there were issues with the flooring and yesterday we had the flooring removed to be relaid, only to find damp at our back wall of the house, not in the wall but the floor and only in a small area. I said to the kitchen fitter/floor layer that he pointed out damp to me when he ripped out the original kitchen and he blamed it on old pipework! He made it very clear not his fault and I accepted that.

There is black mold forming on the tiles as they were covered in fibreboard underlay, this has held the damp and was crumbling as it was removed. Our kitchen fitter/floor layer team said that they thought the small area had previously had a partition wall present, as the quarry tiles gave clues of a previous structural layout. They thought that the person(s) who filled in the hole where a partition wall may have been before had just built on mud and therefore run off water outside in the garden would run down to the house and filter underground and then seep up into the house floor?????

We have rang three damp specialists in the area to obtain free quotes but none able to attend until Monday at the earliest.

The kitchen fit team said we could possibly latex the floor and put a sheet of plastic and then relay laminate to try a temporary solution or to opt for tiles again, laid over and this would not become as damp as wooden/laminate flooring. Thinking it would put off any further damage 3 yrs or so. Hmmm

We have paused work until we can have a specialist's advice and as money is short!

Dander and Wallbash, your support is appreciated I'm sure. I have already found your comments and constructive questions a pick me up today after the long saga that is nearly a year old of fitting a new kitchen in an old house!

I have explored outside and think and hope the answer may lie in a horrid patch of crazy paving (my personal opinion, replacement is on the to do list!) with a slight gradient down to the house. And a strip of gorgeous old black bricks adjacent to the house wall, where the problem lies. I hope as this sounds the cheaper answer!

The patch affected does not run the length of the phantom wall into the centre of the kitchen, more along our existing outside back wall.

Thank you again, I have found help in your comments and I think humphriess there may be a wise word in getting at least a couple of quotes and opinions. As that nonsense about ripping up your dining room/unaffected area sounds like a money spinner job!

nina_2

We had the damp proof people out today for our quote and diagnosis. The verdict was given from sight. That '"these houses" are built on mud and in those days there were no floor coverings to cover over quarry tiled floors. They were not meant to be covered over.' Saying that on closer inspection when I asked the gent to check the adjacent wall (as we have just had leaks from underfloor pipes causing water damage to the ceiling and said wall) he said that the white marks on the floor were groundsalt coming up from moisture below. So I think that was back to the mud theory again.

The suggested solutions
i) thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds of work to be done by digging up the floor and complying with building regs going down to a depth of about 12 inches, filling in with sand and then concrete.
ii) using plastic as a membrane and calling an asphalt company to asphalt over the tiles.

Regarding no ii) the gent added that for this method to work the asphalt would go right up to the walls and as we have a new kitchen this would have to be removed to do this. Also it was pointed out this would take one hour to dry only whereas digging up the kitchen would mean........well an inhabitable house in our case, due to a baby and the kitchen location in the house. I still had my questions unanswered as to why this only came up now and not previously as that part of the kitchen was covered in a particularly nasty looking carpet when I moved in. And only been a problem last six months and to my knowledge not since the house was built in Victoria's reign! I was told the water tables could be different this year.....

Completely unsure what we should do now........twiddling thumbs and hoping for a dry-ish Winter!