Water Ingress?

ChilliBob

Hey everyone,

Went to see my Mum (and Dad) yesterday (as I'm sure millions of others did too!) and she asked me to have a look at a couple of walls in her house with marks on. It was worse than I had thought, so I did some investigation myself, and asked Gemini. I'm just hoping to get some actual real human input and advice on here!

Essentially two walls are concerned - the one next to the stairs, which is an external wall on the 'detatched' side of a semi detached property, the second wall is the one connected to it - which is 'over' the stairs if you like - so internal, solid, but makes the corner with the other one.

The marks are towards the top and middle of these walls, and are yellow/brown, raised bumps and dry. The walls have lining paper on and are painted - some of the seams of paper are lifting.

Stuff to point out:

1. They've lived in the house about 60 years, and never seen anything like this
2. The outside of the house is pebbledashed
3. The roof meets flush wioth the edge of the house pretty much - no soffits/plastic stuff
4. There's no marks or cracks (visible) on the outside wall
5. The loft (above this) does have some daylight visible in a few places - but in all honesty, this has been the case for a good while - think years rather than months
6. The roof is tiled
7. They're 86 and 82 - the thought of an entirely new roof and fully boarded loft isn't on the agenda!

The internal re-decoration isn't a huge concern - they know a half decent decorator, and worse case, I can help. It's finding the cause that's the issue. Gemini reckons it's water ingress.

Some pictures - obviously hard to focus on a painted wall so not brilliant! Thanks for looking!

ChilliBob

Oh and semi-useful additional information, based in London/Essex - so not super cold like you'd experience further up the country.

Bigphil1474

Does look like water damage although the pictures are unclear - is there no guttering on or near that part of the house? Could be a loose roof tile or two, damaged guttering etc. I reckon your best starting point will be to get a roofer to have a look at the roof area near there and make sure everything is in order. They should be happy to look at the guttering as well if there is any nearby. Could be just a blockage. They may well be able to spot if there's any issue with the pebble dash as well. If they find the problem, strip the walls, give them a good clean, leave to dry for a while , redecorate.

I'm up in Yorkshire, and it isn't the Arctic ya know 😁

ChilliBob

Yeah, that's the best of about 15 pictures I'm afraid! I suspected it'd be a roofer type job - I'm just afraid they'll try to pressure my folks into replacing the entire roof and all the guttering - I need to strike the balance between someone decent and professional, and someone willing to do a small fix but not be a chancer!

Arctic I bet not, but it's probably colder than London most of the time - well, my Mrs went to uni in Hull and maintains it was colder! - I guess I just meant it's not like an area of the UK that has to deal with the more extereme ends of the weather like some areas prone to snow/ice/ etc

Albermarle

Arctic I bet not, but it's probably colder than London most of the time - well, my Mrs went to uni in Hull and maintains it was colder! - I guess I just meant it's not like an area of the UK that has to deal with the more extereme ends of the weather like some areas prone to snow/ice/ etc

Ignoring London itself as it is hotter than surrounding areas due to the big city effect.

If you compare say Berkshire to the main part of Yorkshire, the average temperature is only one degree higher.

It only gets significantly colder up North at higher elevations, such as the Peak District . Lake District, Pennines etc or until you get up into Cumbria and Northumberland, so almost in Scotland.

ChilliBob

Fair enough. Feels like the small side point is becoming the focus, when it wasn't meant to be!

I suppose the point I was making is the house wasn't located somewhere that weather would typically cause issues than you'd reasonably expect in most UK homes. Like somewhere very windy/cold/battered by the ocean etc. Just a big standard semi.

Bigphil1474

Are you on Facebook? - if you are, find a local group, might be one specific for their postcode. Ask for roofer recommendations. You'll get a load of roofers saying they're brilliant, but look for the recommendations from people who have used them. A decent roofer won't mind doing a small repair if that's what it is, they charge accordingly, but they will also be hoping for repeat custom and for your mum and dad to tell all their friends how good they are. You are more likely to get good local trades that way IME if you don't know anyone already.

ChilliBob

Yeah, funnily enough I was doing that yesterday actually. Then asked Gemini about some of the ones that kept being recommended. Was interesting as it pointed out these ones had no reviews elsewhere, and to look and see if different people were recording them or always a small set. Turns out it was right, the same small handful of people - do probably wives, brothers or something. I've got a couple of ideas though now :)

ChilliBob

Just reaurrecting this thread.. Having had next to no rain in the South East we've not looked for evidence of where this is coming from ourselves. My folks have had other health things to deal with before returning to this...

Today my Mum has called and reckons it's getting worse, like more raised, hard, dry, yellow lumps. I figure this is just water reacting with whatever is under their lining paper and causing this.

Mum asked about insurance and getting in a surveyor. Not done this myself, but as she points out, having just the internals sorted will be costly - full strip of paper, and probably repplaster and repaint on the hallway for starters - before even considering the cost of dealing with where the leak is coming from (which I suspect will either be really cheap, or really expensive!).

Thoughts on the insurance route - would it typically cover this sort of thing? It's not like it's a burst pipe or something. No experience of claiming on house insurance myself.

MysteryMe

I doubt it would be covered by insurance as it's just wear and tear maintenance stuff. The usual suspects are guttering and slipped roof tiles or failing lead work around the chimney stack. Where the water staining is, is not necessarily where the water ingresses. I appreciate it's difficult as it's not where you live but going outside in a downpour and taking a look might assist, especially it it's guttering. Also get up into the loft and see if there are signs. Is the wall next to the chimney stack wet etc.

ChilliBob

Thanks for the reply. I had a look in the loft and it looked pretty dry to me, but I'm no expert and didn't trust myself crawling right into the eaves.

The fact it's slowly getting worse despite no rain for ages makes me think I'd not necessarily see anything at the moment.

Only drizzle forecast in the next few days (Bank holiday isn't it! He he).