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Rising Damp ?


ChezTinns
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We have an old property in the SW which is empty for most of the time.  We manage to visit about once every 5-6 weeks either for long weekends or 1 - 2 weeks at a time.  The house is sound, warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  We don't have a problem with damp or mould, but there is an internal wall that during the rainy season does get very damp - wet almost.  The damp does come from the bottom upwards, and is the only wall in the whole property to suffer from this problem.  We have removed the wall paper from one side to let the wall dry out which it seemed to have done over the summer.  We are spending a week out there over Christmas and had planned to try and address the problem. Can we paint something on the wall to seal it?  Also I have seen de-humidifiers for sale in the brico shops but would be nervous about leaving anything plugged in whilst we are not there - has anyone used those recepticle things with gel like sachets in them which are supposed to suck up moisture in the air?  Any suggestions very gratefully received. 

JT

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Initial thoughts , you'd probably be wasting your money on a de-humidifier.With the problem confined to an internal wall its unlikely to be condensation.

How is the wall constructed , stone , tile , studded?

Is the floor wood or tiled , concrete , earth?

You don't mean the inside of an external wall do you?

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"- has anyone used those recepticle things

with gel like sachets in them which are supposed to suck up moisture in

the air?  "

Yes, and they work well, obviously they are not the total answer to the damp problem but they do help.

IMHE old stone walls often come with problems like this, it's sometimes something in the stones or to do with the lack of good foundations.

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Hi,

Sorry can't help with the damp issue but we have used the "gel recepical things" in our house that is shut up for long periods of time, with a friend who goes to empty and refill if necessary. We don't really have a damp problem as such but they do extract any excess moisture that may hang around and we certainly find that they help with keeping any problems occuring with furniture, bedding and fabrics. Give them a go they're only cheap and the refills currently selling at only a euro each at a lot of the brico's and especially hyper-u.

Hope it gets sorted out for you.

Best wishes Mel.
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Thanks all, we are going out at the weekend, so will definitely get one of those gel things.  The wall in question is constructed of what looks like plaster blocks and as all the walls sits on tiles.  It is a totally internal wall between a bedroom (on the ground floor) and a corridor.  I suspect that there are little  in the way of foundations, and that the wall probably sits on earth - which is very clay-ey.  Strange that it is the only wall to have this problem and that it is totally 'internal'

JT

 

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[Www]If it were me I'd knock out a block at the bottom to see what it's sat on; if earth, excavate down to see what wet is in the footing. You could then avoid taking down the whole wall by inserting a DPC a couple of blocks at a time, insert a roll of pre-cut membrane a bit longer than the wall and a bit wider than the footing so that it sits above the floor, down into the footing and up onto the other side, fill with concrete to floor level, then roll along, repeat and reinsert blocks as you go along the length. On the other hand you might find that a bit more work is required to the whole floor area. . . . .
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So it's a Carreau de platre internal wall. Block of plaster of Paris basically. without sounding demeaning how do you know it's damp? Those blocks have a constantly cold feel and a rather strange texture to the touch. By example our salle de bains and cuisine are made from these blocks which are not the hydrofuge type but are directly built onto clay tomattes tiles on earth and the damp readings are normal although the feel of the blocks gives the idea of damp. 

 

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If the wall is sat on tiles as you say then if it were rising damp then you would have puddles across the floor as well, either there is an unnown leaking water pipe within the wall (very unlikely) or airborn moisture is condensing or being attracted to this wall, probably due to the presence of salts in some form or another.

I have sections of floorboards here that become sopping wet when the humidity is high, 2" away on the same board is totally dry, i am fairly sure that dog urine was the original cause, in the loft the same has started happening after I left a velux open during a rainstorm, it looks like the salts or perhaps wood preservative have been washed out to the "high tide mark" as it is only around this ring that the damp gathers.

Finally I had a weird problem in my brick garage in the UK, pools of water were appearing on my race car yet there was no leak in the roof, I had hung up my winning laurels and this one had been sprayed with some sort of saline solution to keep the leaves green and it was soppig wet and dripping, all the others were dry and had turned brown.

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