Hello all,
I have a damp front room, the house is Victorian (circa 1849) of brick construction, with a cavity wall. The main damp problem is with the front bay window. I have lowered the outside ground level, which was up about 2 courses above the slate dpc by digging out the concrete that was there and I have replaced the suspended timber floor inside which had been plagued by wet rot.
The inside wall however was not drying out so I hacked off the plaster, which I found out was actually render (someone seems to have bodged a repair before) and had been painted over with gloss to attempt to stop the damp. Under the render was a lot of rot tentacles (technical term
) that had spread across the surface of the bricks and through the pointing. To check I removed a couple of bricks and checked that the cavity was clear. Needless to say is was about 30 cm deep with brick pieces, rotten wood and soil. I am now clearing out said debris with a spoon, it's taking rather a long time, can anyone suggest a quicker method?
I have plenty of ventilation in the bay now with 3 x air bricks inside and out but I need to clear out the cavity before anything will even think about drying out in this 'summer' weather! My intention is to cut out bricks a few at a time over the next few weeks once I have cleared out the cavity and then repoint with a 4 to 1 mixture with a bit of waterproofing solution to stop the rot getting into the mortar again. I'll try and get a picture up if anyone wants to see it.
Has anyone come across this before/ have any bright ideas about how to make my life easier? Or should I just carry on as I am scraping my knuckles and removing loads of soil with a spoon?
I have a damp front room, the house is Victorian (circa 1849) of brick construction, with a cavity wall. The main damp problem is with the front bay window. I have lowered the outside ground level, which was up about 2 courses above the slate dpc by digging out the concrete that was there and I have replaced the suspended timber floor inside which had been plagued by wet rot.
The inside wall however was not drying out so I hacked off the plaster, which I found out was actually render (someone seems to have bodged a repair before) and had been painted over with gloss to attempt to stop the damp. Under the render was a lot of rot tentacles (technical term
) that had spread across the surface of the bricks and through the pointing. To check I removed a couple of bricks and checked that the cavity was clear. Needless to say is was about 30 cm deep with brick pieces, rotten wood and soil. I am now clearing out said debris with a spoon, it's taking rather a long time, can anyone suggest a quicker method?I have plenty of ventilation in the bay now with 3 x air bricks inside and out but I need to clear out the cavity before anything will even think about drying out in this 'summer' weather! My intention is to cut out bricks a few at a time over the next few weeks once I have cleared out the cavity and then repoint with a 4 to 1 mixture with a bit of waterproofing solution to stop the rot getting into the mortar again. I'll try and get a picture up if anyone wants to see it.
Has anyone come across this before/ have any bright ideas about how to make my life easier? Or should I just carry on as I am scraping my knuckles and removing loads of soil with a spoon?
