Search results

1950s house, old skim was in a bad way so got builder to remove all the loose stuff. Some quite large patches were hacked off and we could see places that had been filled and sanded over by someone in the past. Walls were then thistle bonded and plastered over. Was allowed to dry without heat...

Thanks for your reply, @flameport ! I'll definitely get one of those thermometers. On the towel rail, I have to say it's not working badly. We've had overnight temperatures of 4-5C here, well into the morning, and the room has been warm enough with the heat mat on for an hour or two and the...

I spent hours yesterday evening reading about this and I am amazed (and intrigued) at how complicated it is. I already respected plumbers but now, woah, this is serious stuff! Anyway, could someone help me understand this: I have a new gas combi boiler, 30kw When it was installed the plumber...

@Notch7 The company that laid the screed told us to wait 3 weeks and it would be ready for floor to be laid. I thought that was optimistic so I had it tested after 4 weeks. Still clearly damp. Waited another 4 weeks. No change. You say 100 days but if it's not actually drying now what makes you...

@JobAndKnock I hear you - though in our case it's a 1950s residential property, not particularly big (but detached) and no missing roofs / ceilings / cracks in walls / leaks etc. We are renovating it. I just can't imagine why the screed is not drying.

Thanks @JobAndKnock but I'd really rather not seal the moisture in. I want it to evaporate, I'm just perturbed that it doesn't seem to be happening after such a long time! We have introduced air flow but not quite to the level of large fans running constantly (not cheap at the moment!) but I...

We had 70mm of floor screed (sand cement with accelerator) laid on 9 March. It was tested on 5 April and found - via a carbide test - to be too damp to lay laminate flooring. We had a number of locations tested and they were all roughly the same. One, for example was 4.6%. (Laminate flooring...

Hi all, so since posting I have had the drain guys out to survey the drain - no cracks whatsoever and it doesn't even run right along the wall, it's probably about 1m away and well below ground. I've also spoken to the damp specialist who diagnosed some of the other damp problems we had...

We moved to a 1950s detached house in September which has a cupboard space under the stairs. I've noticed some quite heavy condensation inside it which you can see in the attached pictures. The cupboard does smell faintly damp and there was a lot of mould / blown plaster on the walls here before...

Thanks all for these thoughts. A few points: 1. Radiators are already installed, this isn't a question of either or, but going for UFH on top. 2. Would love some thoughts on the point that these pipes will be empty for many years. Is that an issue? What if the pipes have a crack and we don't...

We are in the middle of some major renovations in our house which include excavation of most of the ground floor to put in a new subfloor, DPM, insulation and screed. Had arranged with builders to put radiators in place but the whole time I've been wondering if we should add underfloor heating...

Ah OK I'm with you now. Either of those are fine with me - I just wanted to make sure that the shape / finish of the panels (particularly at the top) would look like it does in those pics. Right?

A bleed valve behind the rear panel? Not sure I follow you. (I'm getting double panel rads btw).

Am choosing some new radiators and the price of Myson round tops appears to have gone through the roof since I last bought some (2019). I'm now considering the cheaper CenterRad ones (which I know are made by Myson) and a plumber told me you can take the grille / cover off these and flip them...

Yes that's the idea - take the insulation out and remove the debris. We don't have any airbricks currently but it would be interesting to put airbricks in above the DPC, actually... Our ground level is very high (basically floor level on one gable and at rear of house) so anything we can do to...

Thanks - in what way did you ventilate the cavity in your case?

Just called a couple of local firms. Rough ballpark is £10,000-20,000... That would put it out of our budget for now. But potentially something for the future? One suggested they could lower the cost if we refilled the cavities and used a thinner external wall insulation. (Less risk of damp once...

Interesting. Still, the issue is mainly cost. We're a detached house and I doubt I can afford this option, sadly.

Hmm surely if there is damp in the walls right now I couldn't put the external insulation on without clearing out the cavities? Wouldn't that just seal the moisture in, to forever cause havoc with plaster etc?

Define "need"? If the house is a bit cooler overall we can live with it. It will be interesting to see how much it changes with the cavity wall insulation out. Remember, as I said, it's fairly thin (50mm) as it is so will we really be losing that much to remove it? The empty cavity will still...