Bricks bridging cavity wall

[Tipper]

Hi, we have two circular porthole windows in our house and are having trouble with damp drawing through the bricks that form the portholes.

They are double ended bullnose bricks laid crossways around he circles that are aligned with the outer brick wall and so sit short of the inner wall face. When it rains and the wind is in the right direction these bricks get wet on the inside and give off a damp smell. We have to regularly bleach them to get rid of the damp smell.

Can anyone suggest what we can do about this? I suspect the only real solution is to remove the circular window frames, remove the bricks, cut them in half and relay them leaving a cavity to break the damp flow.

What do you think?

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[theprinceofdarkness]

A couple of things spring to mind, if the outer bull nose is aligned with the outer wall then water running down the wall will follow the bullnose and drip down within the port hole. The other thing is these drips (and others), are not pooling up against the window frame on the outside.
My Daughter's neighbour have a pair of these and over the ten years of so the round window frame with its stained glass panel has gone from A1 condition to virtually rubbish, the wood is (was) laminated and section of it are gone. Its B*o*d* dreadful to see them deteriorate so badly.
Have you tried silicone water proofer?
Frank

 

[Tipper]

Shortly after buying the place we had all rotten frames replaced with modern aluminium frames including 2 very expensive round frames. If we'd realised the bricks were going to cause a damp problem we would have done something about them. We thought the rotten timber round frames were due to condensation from the single glazed glass. We live and learn!

Does silicon waterproofing coating do a good job? Are some makes better than others?

Thanks