Damp proof wall membrane, pipes and wiring

[sherburn]

Have been advised by a local damp expert to damp proof my living room with damp proof membranes. I've taken up enough of his time already by asking basic questions with nothing in it for him, so decided I'd better not abuse his good nature any more and do that instead to the kind members of this forum!

The whole room will basically be sealed using membranes beneath the floor and around the walls, so what do I do with the existing wiring/pipework? Cut holes in the membrane and reseal them afterwards? Rewire the room so that all the cables are coming down into the room form the ceiling instead of from beneath the floor as they are now?

Really appreciate any help- or links to any similar topics if there are any I've missed out there. Cheers

 

[Alastairreid]

How is the membrane being fixed? normally studwork then membrane which the wires go behind.

What is causing this dampness??

 

[sherburn]

Thanks for the reply alastair, I'm a complete amateur when it comes to this so will be learning as I go, and probably asking a few silly questions on here in the process! Not exactly sure how the membrane fixes to the wall yet, but have been advised to use meshed membrane on the wall that has all the electrics/pipes coming through it, and naked membrane with independent stud to reduce fixings and use independent lath method along the adjacent rear wall. Just confused because I thought the idea was to make a seal to completely keep the water out, so wouldn't cutting holes for existing pipework/cables compromise that seal?

The damp is coming from everywhere! The room has an earth floor and below exterior ground level (exterior to rear of property is a good 1.5metres above internal floor level), plus lower floor level than the room next door.

 

[sherburn]

Would really appreciate any responses, even one word answers would help in response to the question: is it ok to cut holes in damp proof membrane for pipes/wires if you seal them up afterwards?

Thought I'd add another couple of questions here rather than starting a new topic:

Is it generally ok to apply the membrane to a chimney breast? Will be installing a wood burning stove and was wondering if the fact that the chimney breast will heat up would make it unsuitable for the application of membrane to the front of it?

Also, I've been told it's ok to apply membrane over existing paster, after I'd chipped away some plaster and had been concerned about the state of the wall behind it, (crumbling mortar would need replacing before applying membrane if plaster was all removed). The plaster is pretty sound at the moment, but I presume leaving it on would reduce the wall's ability to "breathe" behind the membrane, so wonder if I'd be better to bite the bullet and remove all the plaster?

 

[helpinmanchester]

Hi, I'm in a similar situation at the moment wondering how to apply damp proofing membrane to the walls. Did you sort it out in the end? And would you recommend it?
Thanks!

 

[sherburn]

Hi, only just finishing off my living room now- ended up knocking off all the plaster and re-pointing before putting up a visqueen membrane. No idea if it was the right thing to do or not but the room is nice and dry now. What I did was construct a stud with the membrane up against the external walls, with insulation inside that, with a vapour check on the room side behind plasterboard.

The internal wall wasn't so damp, mainly just wet at the bottom as it's lower than the room at the other side, and at the sides where it meets the external walls. Lined that with visqueen and then fixed battens to the wall with screws, applying silicone sealant wherever I went through the membrane- not something I'd do if the wall was soaking wet, but figured the silicone would do a decent enough job in this case. Time will tell I suppose!

No idea if that's any use to you, and I'm still a complete amateur so could have done everything completely wrong, but once I got going it seemed that as long as you research every step of the way and apply a bit of common sense it should turn out ok in the end!

 

[helpinmanchester]

Thanks for the info!