Where could this damp be from?

SameOldRoundabout

I know, this is such a common topic. But I can’t see an obvious cause for this one. I hadn’t noticed a problem until today when I started painting the porch and all the paint in this corner started peeling. There is no visibly damp patch, and although the wall feels.....damper than you’d expect (with paint rubbing off onto your fingers) it does not feel wet. Ground level outside is lower, there’s no obvious defect in the wall and the corner is only damp below the dado rail. Any more experienced renovators got some ideas please? 

Doozergirl

There is/was a climbing plant there.  How long has that been there for?  

Is something being boxed in on that wall? Pipework? 

Could that dwarf wall at the porch be exposed to driving rain and allow water to penetrate in?    Is the porch original?  There's no flashing at the join, so it's relying on being kept dry by the roof.  

Apodemus

Nice door!

EDIT:  And I've just spent an educational half-hour learning about the story of the SS Trevessa!

coffeehound

The creeper does seem to have gotten right into the mortar gaps higher up

SameOldRoundabout

There was an ivy there, it’s been there a lot of years. We hacked it down last year as soon as we moved in and removed the stump and roots. 

The side of the house is a bit of a bodge job. It had some issues with solid wall delamination or subsidence (we are unsure but another original wall had delamination and required solid wall anchors) back in the early nineties. The owner at the time was a builder, claimed masses on the insurance and pocketed it and rebuilt the entire side of the house as cheaply as possible. That is not boxing in, but where the original 18 inch solid wall would have come to, the newly built wall is much thinner hence the odd corner. 

The porch is original, from about 1900. The dwarf wall is my number one culprit. But the water would need to be getting through approx 18 inches of solid stone to penetrate, and oddly now I’ve taken the wallpaper off that corner, although the paper is damp and smelly the underlying plasterboard is dry?! 

I’m aware of the problems with plasterboard and gypsum in old houses, but this side of the house is a bit different due to the 90s rebuild, the front of the house is original solid stone but the whole side is double skinned breeze block or similar. 

Doozergirl

Hmm.  Water penetrating where the creeper has been, travelling down and hitting the point where the old and new walls are mismatched, so escpaing there? 

If there are gaps in the mortar, the water doesn't need to soak the bricks, it just follows the mortar or the gaps where it should be.  (So it could be the dwarf wall or any other weak point in the mortar). 

You definitely need some repointing though, especially where the ivy was.  And maybe a decent silicon over the dwarf wall join for the moment. 

SameOldRoundabout

Thanks all, I think we’ll need to get someone with a very long ladder to come and scorch the dead ivy off this summer to see where we are with it. I’m planning to have the whole side of the house rendered and the front sandblasted and repainted in a couple of years when funds allow so it’s really a case of warding off extra problems for now 🙁 But the ivy and siliconing the dwarf wail are both great suggestions, thank you. 

Apodemus, it’s a good story! I did try and get OH to let me name one of our cats Cecil in the captains honour as this was his family home, but he wouldn’t go for it. 

Apodemus

Really interesting that the house actually has a link (I feared that it was more mundane and had been owned by Trevor and Vanessa!)  I liked the bit that in WW1 he had been torpedoed twice, on separate ships, within 16 hours, so knew the importance of provisioning his lifeboats and managed an orderly evacuation from the rapidly sinking ship in a gale and high seas.  Must have been quite a guy!