Damp problems help needed!!

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10 Sep 2011
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Belfast
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United Kingdom
Firstly apologies for the long post..
We have a 1930's semi detached house with a pre existing damp problem right along the party wall, next doors walls are the same if not worse than ours although they have papered over theirs with thick paper....

The back downstairs dining room wall paper is soaking with white patches & dark wet patches coming from the bottom of the wall and featuring spordaically up to 1 meter in height. It appears worse in the chimney area, which was sealed up but we installed an air vent. There is a distinct damp smell in this room.

The front lounge also had some damp on the chimney breast however this seemed to be under control after chemical damp injection was done, it came back & we cut it away & painted Thomsons damp proofing paint & painted over which worked for about 3 months & it is now back...

Now new damp patches have appeared along the middle of the middle wall seperating the 2 downstairs rooms the dining & lounge rooms. We only repainted the lounge at Christmas & the new damp patches appeared about 3 months ago. It started with flaking bubbiling painta & now there are dark water marks right across the entire middle section of the wall. There is also a localised damp pactch which appears to get darker/wetter every time it rains. We have discussed this with our neighbour who said they had the exact same problem along the middle wall separating their two rooms but they have put embossed wall paper over the patches to hide it.

We have had our builder check our roof, which is fine & the chimney was repointed & painted with flash guard. There were a few cracks on our side in the cement. Next doors side of the chimney (it is a shared chimney) was also fixed by our builder theres was in worse condition & he also put a cap on one of their pots which is not used as it appeared this could be part of the problem. There is still one of their chimney pots which remains uncovered as they use this for a fire however they have advised they are going to sort out their own chimney pot.

Over the last few days we have had heavy rain & i think the patches are worse although hubbie disagrees.. I can also smell damp in this room which was not present before.
Can anyone shed any light please? We have had a 'damp specialist' out who advised that the course of action should be to cut out the damp in the walls, replaster with special mix & let to dry out & also install new damp course at a cost of £2,200. However he could not tell me the source of the damp he just kept saying it was coming from the atmosphere....

I am unsure whether this is the right path to choose as I want to know where the damp is coming from I dont want to gloss over it as such. The problem now is I cant stand looking at the walls the state they are in & we are now thinking of wall papering over the damp patches with think wall paper for a few months until the new year & then we will get it sorted as it is not practical at this time to move out for a week to get the work done...

Anybody any ideas please? I have uploaded a few images of the new damp patches which have appeared in our lounge.
 
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