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I'm also in Portsmouth. Render is rarely applied to older walls that are sound and dry, unless there is some decorative intention. Render is however, often applied when dampness is already present, and may cause further damage to the structure and dampness problems inside if the true cause of...

I once had to replace half a dozen Marley tiles when a ventilator pipe was removed. The replacement tiles were new, and much brighter than the old tiles. I disguised them with black boot polish to tone the colour down and dabs of white masonry paint to reproduce the appearance of circular...

The metre high render is an impervious coating which could bridge moisture in the wall from below the DPC to the wall above, but it has probably existed like that for a long time, so it is unlikely to suddenly be causing a problem. It will however make the wall colder, so internal condensation...

The soil or ground surface should be at least 2 brick courses (150mm, 6 in.) below the DPC. This is to prevent rainwater splashback on the wall above the DPC. Soil is less likely to splash from soil quite as high as from a solid surface, like a path. There is no great problem with soil...

Will it be hard going? This depends on the age of the building and original mortar and brick type, and how well the mortar joints had been raked out when the pointing had been done, and how hard the pointing mixture was. If the bricks and original mortar are soft, and the mortar was lime...

There is likely to be either a concrete or steel lintel above the window. Both of these conduct heat better than brick or plaster, and drilling a hole through to the vicinity of the lintel will cause a cold bridge to the outside, and your drilled hole has allowed condensation to occur in the...

No slippier than soap was. It wasn't a shower, and had a corner seat, so it worked fine

I used to rent a house in London with a dark blue glass fibre corner bath. It showed the lime scale something rotten - eventually, after removing scale I would polish it up with Turtle Wax every fortnight, which improved the appearance a lot.

You say that the holes go back 5-6 inches in a solid wall? I guess foam and silicone would do the job - foam alone, and touch up the masonry paint would probably be no worse.

I'd hazard that these vertical lines of holes were done as part of the survey, not the treatment holes, which are clearly in the exposed mortar course at the bottom of the wall in the image. As part of the survey, the vertical drillings would attempt to show the dampness profile of the walls...

Condensation is very likely during October-March if heating is only on at weekends. Intermittent central heating will allow the air to rise in temperature rapidly, and humidity from the air will condense on surfaces below the dew point, like the metal box in contact with the brickwork, in a...

It seems like you are describing condensation on a cold thermal bridge - winter only, disappearing in dry weather, not summer, and apparently returning even after dampseal treatment. If there is a leak, it would be apparent when it rains, summer or winter, so installation of a dpc is unlikely...

Travis Perkins may stock a similar torus skirting. I found a near match for my daughter's 1900 (I guess it was as old as the house) torus skirting in timber (double faced with ogee). This had a smaller radius half round like yours appears to be. TP also cut your timber to the length you need...

I had a conservatory on a house I had previously let, and the last tenants had allowed the whole house to get damp. During the winter, as I was drying the whole house out, the conservatory acted as a magnet for the condensation. I found that desktop fans helped move the air around, warming the...

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Typical yellow London stock bricks, solid or with snapped headers and possibly with a clinker block internal skin, with no appreciable cavity. Weatherstruck pointed in later years with strong cement mortar. Almost all the cracking appears to be in the vertical mortar courses, the crack...

Just a question - what fire separation means exist between your properties under the shared roof? In other words, if you had a fire, would not smoke and fire damage their property and vice versa? I don't know the legal situation here, but if this situation exists, I am guessing it could...

If you have timber framing, there will be at least 50 mm of mineral wool between the external flue and the outer side of the timber frame. This is there for 2 reasons - to accommodate differential movement between the masonry and the timber frame, and as a fire barrier. This movement, over the...

The drill test tells you only if the brickwork is saturated - if not, then the damp is not coming through the brick. If the wall is saturated then look for the cause, but if the underlying wall is dry, then the damp is not in the wall - it is in the surface coat - for whatever reasons -...

When I did this, I used joist hangers, 50mm insulation between joists as recommended by building control, and t+g flooring board, adding through ventilation bricks to outside, and to the house existing subfloor space - which had no insulation as originally built.