Hello opps,
If any of your mates have ammo reloading scales, or if your wifes scales read to 100th of a gram, you could reasonably establish if you have excessive moisture in the wall of your building.
Take a small piece of the wall, say an oxo size piece of brick,
Weigh it, thats the wet weight.
Put the sample piece in a low oven over night. To make good use of the oven get your misses to do some merengues at the same time.
Next day once the brick sample has cooled off weigh it, thats the dry weight.
Taking the dry weight as 100%,
if the wet weight is not more than 4 or 5% heavier, i wouldnt think it would be dampness, be it rising or penertrating.
It could be condensation.
Enjoy your merengues.
The Baker