FTB + Damp in 1930s house

tooldle

We had similar in our last house (1904, solid walls). Cracked render in our case. We took the plaster off in the effected room and let it dry out over the summer months before redecorating. Certainly wouldn’t put me off, I’d view it as one of those things that happen with older properties. We moved a few years back to a 1970’s built property with filled cavities. The difference in heat retention is incredible. 

bbbuyer

tooldle said:

We had similar in our last house (1904, solid walls). Cracked render in our case. We took the plaster off in the affected room and let it dry out over the summer months before redecorating. Certainly wouldn’t put me off, I’d view it as one of those things that happen with older properties. We moved a few years back to a 1970’s built property with filled cavities. The difference in heat retention is incredible. 

Thanks - so you had to wait a few months until re plastering painting etc?

propertyrental

tooldle said:

We had similar in our last house (1904, solid walls). Cracked render in our case. We took the plaster off in the effected room and let it dry out over the summer months before redecorating. Certainly wouldn’t put me off, I’d view it as one of those things that happen with older properties. We moved a few years back to a 1970’s built property with filled cavities. The difference in heat retention is incredible. 

Seems strange. So you did not fix the cracked render (or remove it? Then next time it rained, more water would get between the render and brickwork and undo all the good 'drying out' work you did internally.

As said earlier, fixing the root cause is the only long-term solution.

stuart45

I've worked on houses where there were patches of blown sand/cement render that had water trapped behind them that ran out when you hacked them off. 
As propertyrental said the key points are to identify and fix the cause of the damp. Hygroscopic salts can also be a problem near a chimney.

AskAsk

That looks like it is from a leak upstairs.  I had a similar problem at my house and it was from the balcony and I suspect it was the drain from the balcony.  There may be a pipe leak upstairs.

Okey00001

Seen this before and found it to be damaged rain water drain close to the house. Over the years, water went under floorboards and up the wall- a capillary action of water rising.  Easy to fix rain water drains, problem solved.  Once problems are fixed in older properties, they are better than new built homes.

tooldle

propertyrental said:

tooldle said:

We had similar in our last house (1904, solid walls). Cracked render in our case. We took the plaster off in the effected room and let it dry out over the summer months before redecorating. Certainly wouldn’t put me off, I’d view it as one of those things that happen with older properties. We moved a few years back to a 1970’s built property with filled cavities. The difference in heat retention is incredible. 

Seems strange. So you did not fix the cracked render (or remove it? Then next time it rained, more water would get between the render and brickwork and undo all the good 'drying out' work you did internally.

As said earlier, fixing the root cause is the only long-term solution.

Perhaps I should have spelt out every detail. Of course we fixed the problem, the point I was trying to make being that we did not rush to redecorate, preferring to give the wall plenty of time to dry. Our walls were quite thick.

RelievedSheff

Okey00001 said:

Seen this before and found it to be damaged rain water drain close to the house. Over the years, water went under floorboards and up the wall- a capillary action of water rising.  Easy to fix rain water drains, problem solved.  Once problems are fixed in older properties, they are better than new built homes.

Our previous house which we sold in 2019 was a 1930's built house (which for the record was a very dry house so older properties needn't be damp).

We part exchanged that property against a new build house and would have to disagree entirely with your "older properties are better than new built homes" statement.

Our "new" house is so much easier to live with. There is no wasted space, the layout is more suited to modern living, the running costs are far less (we use less than half the energy we did in our older smaller house) and it feels a more substantially built house.

The 1930's semi wasn't that well built when you poked around it and it had terrible noise transmission from next door which was ultimately why we moved.