Building Damp Problems

[skhudy]

Building has had extensive work done on it in the past to convert it into a Hotel (in 1970)

It's had signs of damp throughout the original part of the building. The concrete floor inside (above the original building damp course) is throughout the building. Another right royal pain is the copper central heating pipes are all buried (hope they don't corrode...) On taking out an air brick, it's full of rubble, so its been backfilled and screeded?

It's difficult to know without digging out floors whether there is any form of dpc, but even if there was, it appears it has been breeched.

So is the best thing chemical dpc, and all that entails (hacking off plaster etc). Is this the best route? Or breaking the concrete around the edges and laying in dpc into the origional damp course and up the wall and filling with screed again? I'm guessing its going to be expensive what ever is done!

 

[Notch7]

Maybe look at a membrane system if removal is difficult

Oldroyd for example
https://www.safeguardeurope.com/products/cavity-drainage

Are you saying you have a lack of damp proof membrane under the concrete and an issue with damp in the walls where the dpc has been breeched

If its quite a big building maybe you might be best to get a surveyor in to advise. There is a lot to go wrong dealing with damp issues and plenty of rogue companies selling solutions for 'rising damp'.

 

[skhudy]

I don't know what they did to the floors, I had thought it was screed on the timber floors, and the outside levels were all at or over the dpc hence the damp inside (cleverly covered with cladding or commercial vinyl paper)

Having an alteration and digging out a small area i said to take out an air brick at dpc level which was blocked to look inside, and under the floors are filled with rubble. It's an area of approx 12mx30m

What I might do is break the floor in an unused cupboard to get some idea what they did and then have to get a surveyor in to look and suggest the way forward