Damp advice! - old house - pebble stone walls held together with voodoo?

[spikeuk36]

Hi , We purchase a house build in 1860, its need a lot of work on it. It's in a livable state but there are various damp patches around, rotten windows etc.

..In a room downstairs, we had a damp patch on the plaster, where the paint was peeling off of the plaster. In this particular room it seems to always be freezing! even though the 3 windows are all upvc.

No mold present, put the paint was flaking off and you could see the plaster was wet underneath - seemed to be in the centre of the wall under the window, dry around the patch.

- The window looks ok, not wet - no obvious gaps etc, its a upvc window.
- The outside of the external wall is rendered , again no obvious cracks or missing render, doesn't seem to be blown either...
-The base of the wall has a concrete walkway so its not immediately into the soil (there is a path outside the window joined to the house) it seems very dry no cracks etc.
- Additionally the wall is shielded from rain /weather as outside single story peg tile roof overhangs the walkway supported by wooden struts - (Like a car port with a peg tile roof and its sloped away from the house)

Ok well I stripped off the plaster on this wall to 1.5 meters.
...that's when the madness started!

-The plaster appears to be lime with horse hair in it, however recently its been part skimmed with normal gypsum pink plaster? (it seems to be the gypsum that's wet)

-NO bricks behind. The wall seems to be made from round pebbles held together with some sort of cement? I removed some, it seems the whole house is made from round pebbles - no bricks. With that in mind I doubt there is a cavity maybe that's why its freezing?

...I noticed the skirting board was extra thick, turns out they had glued wooden mdf skirt over the top of a concrete skirting board.

I can clearly see holes drilled into the concrete skirt - for a injected damp proof course done previously!...

When stripping the plaster I hit cement down to the floor from around 1 meter - again this looks part of the past damp proof course fix. I removed the cement.

The damp area was under the cement. After removal, I noticed the wall looks like its been painted with some sort of plasticized liquid? it seems very hard and dense where it is wet - like its been treated with something....


- OK so I don't think injecting a dpc will fix this....
- I suspect I do not need to use cement, that was stopping the water from escaping?
- I suspect I just need to use lime plaster which is breathable?

Do I need to seal the wall or treat it with anything? I can see where the damp is coming from it seems to be penetrating as its not rising from the bottom?

I chipped some render off outside to take a look - its sooo hard and not cracked, it looks like there are pebbles underneath again...

What sort of construction/voodoo is this?

 

[stuart45]

What part of the country is it?

 

[spikeuk36]

Kent - story is that it was a lodge cottage build for a manor home on the hill..... there's a sister cottage down the road, we knocked them up and asked about their house - they didn't seem to know anything about it after 30 years of living there!

 

[Nige F]

-



What sort of construction/voodoo is this?

Construction = Bungaroosh. Voodoo = Lukundoo

 

[wessex101]

I thought Bungaroosh was very much restricted to Brighton and the immediate vicinity and consisted of all sorts such as bits of broken brick, bits of roof tile, pebbles, etc.

OP's example just sounds like a poor quality concrete to me, there are a few Victorian houses built using concrete, especially in coastal areas where there was a ready supply of beach shingle.

If it is penetrating damp then you either need to address the external pebbledash finish to prevent the rain getting in as well as tackling anything that might be causing localised wetting such as leaking gutters, ineffective drips to sills etc. or tank it internally with something like a cavity drain membrane to stop the dampness spoiling the internal finishes.

 

[stuart45]

I thought Bungaroosh was very much restricted to Brighton and the immediate vicinity and consisted of all sorts such as bits of broken brick, bits of roof tile, pebbles, etc.

It is mainly in Brighton, although others areas may have some similar methods. Near the front, beach pebbles seemed popular while further inland flint and lumps of chalk seemed to make up the bulk.

 

[spikeuk36]

Ah.. these look more like pebbles, I think they are flint?

you can see in the holes more pebbles!

...Excellent.....

 

[Footsoldier888]

They once did one on DIYsos in Littlehampton that looked a bit similar to this. The good news is they did fix it all!

It could be worse, at least it is not listed I take it. Sounds a very interesting dwelling.

 

[stuart45]

http://www.iwhistory.org.uk/concretehouse/
An article on early concrete houses.

 

[bobasd]

thanks for the article, interesing.
i dont know much about this stuff but thats not a concrete wall in the photo its loose pebble rubble an fines thats been rendered. the only one ive seen didnt have flint init but just pebbles from maybe riverbeds and a sprinkling of cement or lime as a binder. it was only one house wall not the whole house. the outside had split an small pebbles stuck on with sand and cement, i dont know how the inside was finished. it was done about 1910

 

[spikeuk36]

Thanks for all the info - any ideas on how I can stop the damp?

 

[Footsoldier888]

The damp expert Peter Ward has some great youtube vids on this.

On some of his vids it turns out the cement render at the front is trapping what may be condensation moisture in the wall as it can't exit from inside to out. But the possible problem you have is the render could be playing a part in the stability of the wall so you would have to take advice on that before proceeding.

In general it nearly always turns out to be condensational, penetrating damp or a problem caused by a leaking drain outside. Often the dpc treatments and tanking only make it worse, which sounds like the situation you find yourself in. The good news is the solution is not generally expensive once you diagnose it, even if you have all three.

It definitely isn't a listed building then? I am just asking because lodges sometimes are.

 

[spikeuk36]

ahh - I suspect we need to ''let it breath'' - nope its not listed. Its so cold in that room we couldn't make out why , its obviously because of the 3ft thick rubble walls lol.

 

[stuart45]

But the possible problem you have is the render could be playing a part in the stability of the wall so you would have to take advice on that before proceeding.

If it's anything like the old Bungaroosh walls the render will be holding it all together. Because they were built using shuttering and thrown together some parts of them can be really unstable.
However if you are carefull enough the render and plaster can be removed and redone in lime which allows the moisture to pass through the walls and away.
Old properties are often more about manages the damp rather than blocking it.

 

[Footsoldier888]

Has the house been empty for a time? I know it must feel like a shock but if you can get some fires going the thermal mass of the wall will be good, it's just it may take a lot of heat to warm it up if it has stood empty.

Ofcouse if you are cooking and have no fan the condensation will get attracted to the coldest wall and then fall downwards. I am having the same issue with my quarry tile kitchen.