Damp? Or condensation

stuart45

daveyjp said:

If that's a chimney alcove is the chimney still open allowing air to circulate?

If not damp will always be an issue.

That's a good point. The chimney breasts and areas close to them are also often affected by salts, which can also attract condensation.
It would be worth lifting a few floorboards to look at what's happening underneath.
A high water table can often cause problems.

katymayo

That is the chimney breast next to it and it's an open fire that regularly gets used in the winter. Probably didnt help either that the previous own put 5 different wallpapers on and striped none of them off 🤦‍♀️ so I have just spent the afternoon taking that lot off

DRP

katymayo said:

My neighbour is a builder and he has completely renovated his house & had the whole of his downstairs dug out and laid concrete because all of the joists were rotten. There is absolutely no way I can afford to have that done.

The area I live in has a high water table (local priest told me as this area can't have a grave yard!) Also all the gardens flood in the winter. I have a well and a pump into the drains that empty the garden.

The neighbour's work sounds like it could be a problem here.

Personally i would lift the floor in that area to see how much moisture is down there.

IN a similarly difficult area in my old house , i dug out the wet soil under the floor boards (cheap free), added more vents (fairly cheap or diy). This helped a bit, and probably would have worked much better in conjunction with taking it all back to brick and lime plastering as suggested above.

IN the end I did what your neighbour did. I was having an extension done anyway, so it didn't cost much and we knew we wouldn't be staying in the house long term.