I'm part way through laying ceramic tiles onto a concrete floor of the utility area at the back of our house, and I've just discovered an area where the floor appears to be quite damp in the corner next to the wall (now that I'm not far off finished!). The wall looks to be dry but there is a dark area on the concrete floor about 6 inches wide running along the wall in this corner. It smells damp, and it leaves a black mark when you rub your finger on it.
This is an interior wall - the other side is the neighbours property. Just to make matters worse it looks as if studwork wall that forms one side of the corner (the kitchen is on the other side) was in place before the concrete floor was laid so that the wood that forms the base of the wall is below the level of the floor. So that has rotted and the plasterboard in this area appears to be a bit damp as well.
The house was built in about 1880 and the whole ground floor has been concreted at some stage, apparently as a result of damp because the plastering has been redone with some sort of hard mix about 1m up the wall.
I can't see any possibilty of their being any buried pipes in this area, although the washing machine normally sits here so it's possible that there could have been a leak, although I've never noticed any obvious signs of this. And obviously, as it's summer, it's been chucking it down over the last couple of days, so that could have something to do with the fact that I've only just noticed it.
Any advice on how to proceed with the minimum impact would be much appreciated - can't really dig up the floor and start again! Is there something I can do to seal it as it's only a relatively small area? And would this affect the tile adhesive?
This is an interior wall - the other side is the neighbours property. Just to make matters worse it looks as if studwork wall that forms one side of the corner (the kitchen is on the other side) was in place before the concrete floor was laid so that the wood that forms the base of the wall is below the level of the floor. So that has rotted and the plasterboard in this area appears to be a bit damp as well.
The house was built in about 1880 and the whole ground floor has been concreted at some stage, apparently as a result of damp because the plastering has been redone with some sort of hard mix about 1m up the wall.
I can't see any possibilty of their being any buried pipes in this area, although the washing machine normally sits here so it's possible that there could have been a leak, although I've never noticed any obvious signs of this. And obviously, as it's summer, it's been chucking it down over the last couple of days, so that could have something to do with the fact that I've only just noticed it.
Any advice on how to proceed with the minimum impact would be much appreciated - can't really dig up the floor and start again! Is there something I can do to seal it as it's only a relatively small area? And would this affect the tile adhesive?
