Damp or Condensation?

[JohnD]

Try and take a flash pic of the mould stuff, someone may identify it. Any signs of dust or spores from it? Does it smell of anything?

 

[anobium]

I am a bit confused , what did you do between Sunday, Dec the 31st and Wednesday the 3rd of Jan to make you think it would dry out.
In saying that I agree with JohnD, in that it dosn't look that bad

 

[Softus]

and yes i've noticed that this 'rising damp' issue is a complicated one and can cause quite a stir

It really isn't very complicated. The facts are that:

1. Nobody on the forum claims to have seen chemical injection actually have any effect on what they call 'rising damp'.

2. Only two people on the forum can describe an example of rising damp that they've seen with their very own eyes. One of them stopped posting a long time ago, and he doubted his own memory. The other is still posting.

anobium's idea about the chimney is a very good one.

Also, bear in mind that the wall will take many weeks to dry out, especially in winter, and that you might have re-plastered prematurely.

 

[anobium]

also going to unblock fire place and put a grill in

I should have mentioned in my previous post, that putting a grill in the chimney breast will not have much effect on the problem in the room.
The purpose of a grill is mainly to prevent condensation occurring within the chimney breast.
What I was proposing was to completely open up the chimney breast as it was originally, ie a fireplace.
Before you embark on the what could be a costly job, why don't you just remove a dozen bricks from the chimney breast and leave it for a couple of weeks and that way you will see what effect it will have on your problem.

 

[Merrimak]

update

well, after two months there was no sign of the damp patches drying out, so this weekend i decided to delve deeper into the problem

i have hacked off all the render where the patches are and discovered that behind each damp patch there were rotten damp wooden skirting board plugs (or decomposed plugs) that had been rendered over! i have scraped all of the said plugs out now, am i right in assuming that this was the cause of the damp patches? if so will i have to allow a period of time for these areas to dry out before re-rendering? or can i just do it now as this was probably the cause of the damp?

 

[JohnD]

No. the damp caused the rot.

Not the other way round.

 

[Merrimak]

No. the damp caused the rot.

Not the other way round.

Yes, understand that mate

but bearing in mind there used to be a fitted wardrobe with a very bad condensation problem enclosing this area, would this have caused the wooden plugs to rot?

i dont have any other problem areas apart from this one.