Rising damp / water wicking in Victorian house

LouiseETW

After trying various things, including the installation of a french drain along the outer walls, we have discovered we have "rising damp" (water wicking up the walls to just over a meter) caused by a previous owner's installation of a concrete floor. The concrete floor itself is dry, but seems to have caused any moisture under the house to be pushed outwards towards the walls. Water wicks up the walls to just over a meter in height.

Our property is a Victorian end-of-terrace, so has no DPC (no air bricks either). The last owner of the house had some chemical DPC injected along one of the walls. It appears to have stopped the damp to a certain point, but there are sections that the water bridges, and the wall is still soaking beneath the drill holes, so I fail to see how that is a fix really.

We cannot afford to dig up the entire ground floor, so are hoping someone can give us some advice as to whether this problem is fixable without breaking the bank. Would chasing out a gap between the edge of the floor and walls mean moisture can evaporate, rather than soaking up the walls? I have no idea if that's viable or a ridiculous thought! At the moment the concrete floor has been laid and taken up the walls around 20cm, and I see no sign of a plastic sheet under it where we've hacked some off the wall. Skirting boards hid the concrete on the lower section of the wall, and when we pulled them off, we found the concrete and back of the skirting to be soaking wet.

I would love to be able to restore the original floor, but funds won't allow for that. However, I would still rather avoid just tanking and sealing up the moisture in the walls. Surely, that sounds like a bad move? We've had quotes from two damp proofers and both didn't want to try and fix the problem just hide it with various impermeable membranes/coatings.

I would be really grateful if anyone can help. Thanks in advance!

SG27

I'm not an expert but I have read about putting a limecrete perimeter around the edge of floor. The idea is this will allow the moisture to evaporate before reaching the walls. I dont know how practical or even possible this would be but might be worth looking into.

flashg67

What's the outside surface like? I've had water retention in a 'solid' (rubble filled) stone wall that was cement rendered - hacking off the render from the ground up to floor level seems to have helped. Repointing with lime mortar is also recommended I believe.

Your idea of a channel (drilling holes?) round the edge of the floor doesn't seem that mad to me - I thought I might need to do that too at one point.

LouiseETW

Thank you SG27 and flashg67. We'll definitely look into using limecrete/lime mortar.

Bit more info:
The exterior walls are red engineering brick. The front of the house has the bricks exposed, which we've treated with water repellant to rule out additional moisture from penetrating damp. The side of the house (we are an end of terrace) has been rendered and also has a french drain that takes rain water directly into the sewer.
We've removed a small section of concrete floor right next to one of the interior walls (only 1-2 inches), and there is A LOT of moisture underneath it. No sign of a plastic sheet as yet either worryingly! However, saying that, we've pulled back the carpet in the lounge to check the moisture in the floor with a damp meter and floor seems fine, so perhaps there is some sort of barrier down, it just hasn't been taken up the walls at all. We're still thinking the problem is the concrete floor pushing water outwards, which is then wicking up the walls.
Will talk to the builder about limecrete most definitely! Thanks again!