Damp

[badgerbob]

I have just purchased a very old stone built property that was previously a barn. It sits at the bottom of a steep hill. When it rains we get a stream of water pouring out through a gap between the drive and the kitchen. The base of the interior walls look like they are damp – Not sure about the floors as they are all tiled. We are having problems with damp in general. So, if there is a stream running under the property and the building has not been properly insulated against it, what should I do?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Photos, when was conversion done, what work was done to get it up to regs etc etc req'd

 

[Bumbly]

Conventional reply - find damp using meter, strip walls back to bare stone, insert membrane, then re-plaster. That's what we did - and we're dry as a bone - and we have a brick and flint cottage, built 4 hundred year ago, partly undergound. Time taken to do most of ground floor - three weeks. Total cost ? Don't ask. Very pleased with results though.

Careful if it's listed.

There are plenty of companies around that specialise in this sort of thing.

Hope that helps.

 

[^woody^]

You've got quite a bit going on there, so you probably need someone suitable to look at it and devise a solution

 

[badgerbob]

Well, it turns out that at some time in the past, the previous owners had wildly hacked away at the wall just above the skirting board to sink an electrical cable.
Then, if the original channel wasn’t wild enough, it was topped with some pretty rough, uneven, bumpy filling and then painted without any preparation, which lead to the paint flaking in places.
So, the end result looked very much like rising damp all the way along the bottom of the wall. This coupled with the stream underneath the property make it look like 100% damp – Fortunately, (and very surprisingly) that’s not the case.

Thanks for your responses.

Badgerbob