Damp in kitchen

[Burnerman]

Best of luck with it Dan - unfortunately there's a fair bit of work there but personally I can't see any other option. In a similar situation I dug a trench maybe a foot wide down to the foundations, and covered it with a heavy galvanised mesh which did what it needed to do. However, this was in a no traffic area and very little risk of rainfall entering the trench so that was certainly on my side.
John

 

[vinn]

Dan45,
Its not at all clear to me exactly where your kitchen FFL is, and where the bay FFL is either?
I presume that the door to the right is the kitchen door - if so then the kitchen floor should be in line with the top surface of the doorstep.
The step is about 6inches above the yard surface, which (given the bay floor line you posted) implies a step-down from the kitchen to the rest of the house?

You say that joists have been repaired in the bay area but what about all along that bay wall and what condition are the kitchen joists in?
How were the joists repaired?

Ref the sill drip throating, use an angle grinder to cut a shallow throat - dont fool around with nonsense such as beads of silicone as a substitute for cut stone.

 

[Dan45]

The bay is part of the kitchen. That door on the right is to the living room...

 

[vinn]

OK, I'll reverse the order, the question still stands - how come one floor appears to be much higher than the other floor?
And the questions ref the joists and joist repairs?

 

[Dan45]

There is a step down to the kitchen/bay area. All the houses on this street have this. The floor is part joists and beams, raised about 100mm from the ground, and then, at the end of the house, concrete. When the floorboards were up, some joists looked like they were rotting - these were the ends that met with the concrete floor. They were replaced with new timber.

I can't remember the condition of the joists alongside the bay wall, but I'm sure they would have been replace if there was something wrong with them

 

[Dan45]

A builder came round today and agreed that the render needed a break, and a trench needs to be dug around the house wall (with a french drain installed). He also insisted that those vents above floor level, are going into the cavity in the wall, and coming out somewhere under the subfloor. Like periscopic vents?

Vinn, you said this was a solid wall - are you sure? How can you tell?

He said the vents I made directly to underneath the floor, via the holes in the concrete, will make it more damp down there.

 

[vinn]

We still dont know where the DPC is.
The FFL/joisting in the kitchen will be backing on to the French drain.
Where will the French drain drain to?

The amount of headers that I can see imply that its a solid wall - measure it at a window, and at a doorway to find out for sure.

 

[Dan45]

I measured today - the walls are 25cm. Does this suggest cavity walls?

 

[chappers]

They could be but probably not, the headers in the brick work would indicate that. how old is the house, it looks Victorian if so won't have a cavity and probably at best a layer of slate as a damp course.
There are issues with the ground/floor levels as pointed out and obviously the drip on the sill where the green staining is, further compounded by the damaged render just there also. that damage has probably been caused by the drip failure. Rendering of this sort usually indicates an attempt to block historic damp problems and whilst if done properly can help, if done badly can just make the situation worse.
I would agree, take the ground level down a couple of courses below the floor level if possible, or at the very least re do it so that it falls away from the house. Remove the render and get it done properly with a bell cast(you can paint the couple of courses below this) and fix the drip on the sills.

 

[stuart45]

I measured today - the walls are 25cm. Does this suggest cavity walls?

Probably a solid wall. If the length of the bricks are around 220mm - 230mm and you add about 20mm -25mm for internal plaster it gives you around 250mm. In Imperial a 9 inch solid wall would usually be aound 10 inches thick with plaster.
There were houses with cavity walls built in Victorian times and some were built with snapped headers making a Mock Flemish Bond, but I doubt it in this instance.