Flaking and bubbly spots of plaster in cellar

sid1234_2

Morning to all,

I have a cellar which is used as storage and has been plastered a few years ago but on a part of the wall the plaster has gone soft and bubbly and as soon as you touch it the plaster falls off.

On other parts of the wall,the plaster is still pretty hard but looks bubbly.

I don't know if this is linked but I hada spare Carpet piece on the floor(which is also plastered) and after a few months,this became black underneath so I removed it and put cardboard pieces on the floor. The cardboard is also now black in some places.

None of the plaster on any wall is wet to touch or gone black.

Does anyone know what this could be??

Your help would be appreciated.

force_ten

Damp

sounds to me that you have damp either rising from the floors or penetrating through the walls, you are going to need to cure the source of the damp before you can deal with the bubbling plaster

cyclonebri1

And again Damp.

Soft bits will have to removed and replastered, but as above you need to fix the source of the damp or even condensation is the culprit.

Penetrating damp is more likely than rising damp (some even go as far as to say there is no such thing as rising damp).

You need to determine if it's the outside walls or the "party wall", another thing you will have to consider (party wall act")

Quote;
"I don't know if this is linked but I hada spare Carpet piece on the floor(which is also plastered)"

You have a plastered floor??????

sid1234_2

Sorry i meant the concrete floor....
The wall that has the bubbling plaster is the one that is my main front wall of the house.

I have no porblems anywhere else in the house.

Messa

You would have to have the cellar tanked to fully fix this problem, it is quite obviously a damp problem.

http://www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/existing-homes/converting-basement/tanking

Gloomendoom

Our cellar is the same, whitewashed walls and a stone flagged floor. It's damp. We just re-whitewash every so often.

As other shave said, tanking is the only way to stop it although improving the ventilation may help. We leave the door open all the time.

Be aware that tanking the cellar can sometimes cause the damp to appear, or get worse, elsewhere... possibly even next door.

cyclonebri1

sid1234 wrote: »

Sorry i meant the concrete floor....
The wall that has the bubbling plaster is the one that is my main front wall of the house.

I have no porblems anywhere else in the house.

Then it's almost certainly penetrating damp, they simply weren't made to be waterproof back in the day, lets face it it is underground.
My 1st house had a cellar, in a wet winter we could get up to 15" of water rising up through the floor as the water table raised.
It din't rise up the walls to any great extent though.

You may have to rethink the use of the cellar unless you want to chuck money at it, but for now check the drainage and run offs at the affected side of the property. Cracked fall pipes, soakaways too close and puddling of water up to the wall are all things that may need addressing. ;)

Gloomendoom

Good advice on checking drains. We used to get a puddle on the cellar floor after heavy rain. I traced the cause to a broken drain at the foot of a downpipe.