First Post - Drying out / warming up a vacant stone house?

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First post but have been lurking here for a while.

We've bought and pending any last minute slip ups will be shortly be moving into an old 17th century property, hopefully before Xmas and would really appreciate some advice on heating/drying it out please!

It's been vacant for about 18 months with no heating or electric on. It's old, 17th century with about 0.75m thick stone walls, mostly rendered, and no damp proof course due to age. There is loft insulation and one extension is also rendered stone has been externally clad with wood (badly). It sounds a peach yes?!

Plan when we move in is to get the modern boiler serviced and get the heating on (it looks like it's been drained down but as a repossession very hard to check anything) to get some heat on. It's also got a gas Arga that we'll get serviced and one open fire and one enclosed wood burner fire which once swept will also be being used.

We'll be coming armed with carbon monoxide and fire detectors as well for safety sake I should add.

The report has picked up damp in walls from dodgy rainwater downpipes, some poor windowsills and in particular the cladding has no membrane (or insulation) behind so is trapping water against the walls on this sections. As such we need to dry and warm the place and then start to tackle the causes.

Question really is, what is the best way to dry and warm a house this old out? It's not as cold inside as you'd expect (certainly warmer than our mid-80s house was after two days of broken heating).

Do we

- light up all the heat sources and open windows to get fresh air in (bearing in mind it's December so outside air likely to be fresh but damp)?
- heat the air that's in there and use a dehumififier (or two) to dry it out?
- something else?

Is drying with the fires better since the updraught will draw air up and pull in fresh (some windows have trickle vents, some external doors have gaps you could fit your fingers under)? Whereas radiators will just warm what's in there.

And what is a good rate to warm the house? Would going from say 5-8degC ambient to 21degC in a couple of days/week be too much?

Some pics for reference -


Damp on extension caused by poorly applied and non-lined cladding trapping moisture -
ltdamp.jpg



Best example of cladding photo I have, also shows comedy downpipes -
ltclad.jpg



Example of the poor finish of cladding, insufficient overlap, no membrane, no insulation and no corner detailing -
ltclad2.jpg
 
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Look into building a French Drain mate, built one this summer although still working on drainage and it made a massive difference on damp. Basically the house didnt get any damper once we did this as before it was getting higher up the walls.

http://www.ihbc.org.uk/guidance_notes/docs/tech_papers/French Drains.pdf

Was reluctant to use the woodfire in the summer on the damp as it was bloody hot and I wouldnt have enough wood for the winter but since Sept/Oct we have been putting it on most nights and this dried up the remainder of the damp, it baked the walls dry leaving crumbling render and paint. Also the stone should absorb the heat although it will take a while to heat up usually or maybe not as you says its not that cold. The stone retains the heat well keeping a nice temperature the next morning after the fires been on.
 
Thanks for suggestion. Did your French drain run off anyway or just aim to keep the water below the ground level as much as possible?

The house is roughly T-shaped with the road infront and projection to rear, and on a slight slope to the road so one side I can sent off down the drive to lose the water, the other unfortunately would hit next doors garage that's attached to ours, which may need more of a decent soakaway maybe?

Did you dig yourself or get someone in?
 
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My house is at the flat top of a slope. A concrete path was up against the house trapping moisture below, at the side of the path was a standing up concrete slab a bit like a thin road curb(used as a border for a raised flowerbed), about 1 ft tall so the water was pooling and soaking through the old cracked concrete. I destroyed the concrete path and removed it and the slab and smoothed out the ground so it slopes more downhill. In a few weeks that damp air feeling in the house went.

After slowly digging in a French drain, trench first, a few weeks break then the perforated drainpipes, wrapped in porous net material then filled in the hole with gravel the damp stopped creeping up the wall, the black patches in the corners stopped coming back and the walls werent sweating anymore. The water runs off slowly down the slope which I directed downhill. I wouldnt want to keep the water below ground level Id want it to run off somewhere. You might need some experts for your soakaways then to avoid impacting the neighbours. Im lucky in this regards as Im in the woods on my own so dont impact any neighbours with my drainage and new/reconstructed out buildings.

I do all the digging and concrete mullering myself. Its hard going, I spent about 6 weeks worth of weekends on this job alone amongst other jobs over about half a year. Buts its the most satisfying job so far as the results were so noticeable. Its not finished yet as I want to rig the drainpipes into an irrigation system for some veggie plots on the downward slope.
 

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