-
+ gypsum plaster.
We've the perfect storm - cross bonded solid wall, no damp membrane barrier (too early for plastic, too cheap for slate).
In the intervening years, the ground has been raised, and an impermeable (I mean, ffs) path laid, cement parging and render, blocked air vents, cement pointing, lead flashing removed, cement fillets added, gutters damaged and full of debris, and on the inside, engineered floorboards, gypsum plaster, double glazed units.
The drip groove under the front window had even been skimmed over, so rain water just flows down the spalled brickwork.
Surveyor's report showed barely half of it...
It's all fixable though, and I get to learnt how to render in lime and build a wooden sacffold.
NotThamesWater-
Sounds a bit like my place.
and I get to learnt how to render in lime and build a wooden scaffold
It's a great skill to learn. Not nearly enough people know how to do it properly so trying to get availability from a specialist is always a headache, never mind the money you can save by doing it yourself.
Vanneau
Absolutely. 'Rising damp' and the traditional ways of dealing with the problem (injected DPC) need to be consigned to the bin.
You often get damp at the bottom of walls in old houses but you'll generally find poor drainage, blocked air bricks or raised ground levels are a contributing factor and once these are addressed things will dry out a bit. A lot of 'rising damp' is just the result of rainwater splashing back up off poorly drained / raised hardstanding. I've seen pictures of a beautiful bit of early 18th century brickwork which had been affected by this, and some clown had drilled a huge line of holes across it and injected a DPC (which did nothing).
Old houses will get damp because their builders did not envisage cement renders, double glazing, and having radiators with a load of clothes drying on them rather than a lot of nice open fires pulling air through the building. Address that and they can perform pretty well.