Owning your own home

TBH I had a problem with a hive I bought from the merchants for a customer and the merchants said I had to go to hive to get it repaired. Total pain in the arse for me and the customer

That's weird and annoying, I had an excellent experience with AO earlier this year when our dishwasher stopped working.

It was outside the warranty period by a couple of months and they replaced it anyway, and also wrote off the difference between the rubbish dishwasher and the Bosch replacement.

I was massively impressed at the time - maybe they changed their policy when their supervisor found out how much being nice cost them.

I think we need pics of this monstrosity.

Sorry long post, tldr; condensation or not?

We had a surveyor around for damp issue in upstairs spare room last year. He concluded it was likely condensation as there were no signs of penetrating damp. I’ve done a lot of reading on the topic but I am stumped, as was the surveyor tbh. It is all around the window frame and also random patches on the wall (pictured).

It was basically invisible during the summer

This winter however it’s formed a pretty clear diagonal patchy line. Not had heating on much but has also rained a lot. What could possibly be causing this? The only thing to note is next doors house casts a diagonal shadow down the exterior of this wall as well, roughly the same shape (top right gets sun, rest doesn’t)

Still think it’s condensation as taking back the paint reveals bone dry plaster but could be wrong.

Even when running a dehumidifier for a day or two the marks stay on the wall. There has never been any mould so I doubt the wall stays damp for long just the marks seem to stay. The current paint is very plasticky.

How do we fix or at least confirm it is condensation?

We want to get rid of external render for breathability, eventually. Another option could be internal insulation to make the walls warmer.

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condensation would only form in that shape if it has a corresponding cold bridge, is there anything like that in the wall or the other side?
Looks like it’s travelling in that way inside the wall rather than condensation so a slow leak from something, presume there’s no diagonal crack in the brickwork?

There is render on the outside wall. It’s a solid wall, nothing on the other side/inside. Render looks OK but may get a ladder to take a closer look

Any leaks in the roof/loft allowing tracking down that wall?

Nope, bricks in loft are bone dry (no plumping in loft either)

Here is round the window.

Can be wet-ish to touch (paint gets on your fingers), currently dry but mark still there, having ran dehumidifier over night

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Round the window makes me think cold bridge (how to fix tho?) but no idea about the wall

Who’s going to post the pic in LiveLoveLaugh thread?....

💅bitches get stuff done💅

We have something very similar in an upstairs bedroom which remains year-round. Party wall, no pipes in loft, no visible roof leaks, chimney stack in loft is bone dry. I've got no clue

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We had something similar in the loft, pointing on chimney was shot. Flauching was full of holes and had a plant growing out if it.

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Oh yeah, chimney has been removed and neighbor has had a new roof. The wet patch was present before these works and hasn't changed 🤔

Does that room have any ventilation?

Is the humidity unusually high (~70% up)?

I wondered if the brickwork is getting damp somehow - crack in the render or borked seal between window and mortar - and it’s getting trapped behind the render but then it would fuck the plaster and it doesn’t seem to have done that.

Yeah I would say the room is normally 70% and up.

On the wall it goes away in summer, but even during the 40 degree heatwave and no rain for 2 months there was a small (5mm) tide line around the window.

If it is condensation we need to increase ventilation but also keep the house warmer (insulation) so air can hold more water?

I’d wanna fix this. The ceiling joists will be sitting in that damp.

The chimney stack will be the coldest bit in your loft so condensation could be forming on it and trickling down if the loft is not ventilated well enough. I’d look at that.

I’d also take off a slice of the wet plaster in the bedroom to give it a chance of drying out.

ETA: just reread and you say the stack is dry. I’d still look at ventilating the loft.

There is c. 1 fucktonne of bricks and 0.5 fucktonnes of mortar in a stack so it could just be years of damp in there with nowhere to go to dry out.

Yeah, probably a combination of

• breathable OG plaster being replaced with non-breathable
  
• chimney being capped off with no ventilation at the top
  
• fireplace sealed up with no ventilation at the bottom
  
  

Once the chimney is capped at the top, the right but slightly depressing thing to do is to remove the chimney breast entirely.

Yeah I would say the room is normally 70% and up.

Yeah that's fairly high.

If it is condensation we need to increase ventilation

Yeah. If you have trickle vents make sure they are open and clean them out if they are blocked with gunk. Is the room near a bathroom by chance? If you keep the room at about 18 deg + you'd expect it to be hard enough for condensation like that to form on the surface of the paint, but it might be water in the brick or plaster itself condensating then pushing outwards through the paint.

A bit late to this and it may already have been answered but when our rate ended we switched to a tracker at 0.75 above BOE base rate. Cost an arrangement fee but that is equivalent to the savings from the tracker vs std variable after 3 months. No exit fee so we can swap out anytime for a fix if the rates come down or ride the tracker for the full five years.

I need to check as I'm not sure the windows have trickle vents. If the windows dont have trickle vents what is the less than 5k solution besides running a dehumidifier 24/7?

I doubt we keep the room/house above 18 degrees..

The room is next to a bathroom, but down a corridor. The bathroom has different windows with trickle vents and a good extractor fan.

The reason I mentioned that the paint is quite plasticky is that I cant imagine water coming through it - it also hasnt bubbled/cracked or anything like that. Taking the paint off reveals dry plaster.

If the windows dont have trickle vents what is the less than 5k solution besides running a dehumidifier 24/7?

Retrofit trickle vents if you can, otherwise experiment with leaving the window just cracked open.

I'd also experiment with heating the room selectively to see if that solves the issue. You can do this with something as simple as a TRV fitted to the radiator in the room, a stand alone electric heater or as expensive / complex as installing 'smart' heating like Tado that offers room by room temperature control. You might find that trickle vents and a slightly warmer room makes the issue go away. If it doesn't then you need to figure out where all the excess moisture is coming from and how it is making it to that location.

FWIW the last month has been bonkers humid.

I've just moved into a house that is wetter than expected. Can anyone recommend a roofer that serves SE London?

Also the ground level outside the house is higher than the DPC so we've got some very damp walls. The ground in question is public highway - a footpath where cars park so I'm not sure who I even need to speak to about digging it up. Long shot but has anyone here dealt with anything similar?

If the windows dont have trickle vents what is the less than 5k solution besides running a dehumidifier 24/7?

PIV system? Not done one myself but am considering one (others on here have, though)

I've always regarded those as snake oil