Dampness after roughcasting

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30 Dec 2010
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Stirlingshire
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United Kingdom
Hi folks,

I need a little bit of advice here, we live in a semi- and our next door neighbours recently had they house extended. They have had the whole property re-rough casted, when doing this they actually went beyond the property line and roughcasted 6" too much onto ourside. That problem a side, I have now noticed a damp patch in the corner of the bedroom at almost exactly inline with where the new roughcast finishes. We have never had a damp issue in before so it the roughcasting seems to be the likely issue.

Originally the builders didn't bother to seal up the joint between the old and new, I had to tell the neighbours about this and they came back out with a silicon seal. I am worried that there is either a crack, or gap somewhere that is letting the water in or they have damaged the brickwork.

We are in Scotland and have had fair amount of snow lying on the roof (which has been aqua sealed), I think that the snow has started to melt and the water is getting in somewhere.

Could a gap/crack in the roughcasting really cause this type of issue? How do I go about proving this, I don't want to be living in a damp house because of the neighbours extension.

Cheers.
 
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Could you describe a little more or take a picture of where this is, i.e is it a new wall abutting your existing or the existing party wall that was stripped and re-covered??

Also what is the wall construction? Cavity Solid or other?
 
Could you describe a little more or take a picture of where this is, i.e is it a new wall abutting your existing or the existing party wall that was stripped and re-covered??

Also what is the wall construction? Cavity Solid or other?

The house is semi-detached, it is a solid (brick) cavity wall and it is the party wall where the problem has appeared.

The whole of the neighbours property was stripped down, when the builders did this they stripped too far over the party wall/detached side on to my house. If you look at the front of the houses you can see that the neighbour's roughcast streches too far is now covers 6" of my wall.

The picture below is old and does not show the roughcasting so I have marked the "new border" in red. The green box roughly shows the position of the damp on the inside.



Thanks for your help
 
Go into your loft and check the trusses at soffit level, it may be the roof painters have painted over broken/cracked tiles at eaves level and after this spate of bad weather is only now showing up. The water can be penetrating and tracking back under soffitts into cavity.

Also the abutment from neighbours property (the flashing) may be choked up with chips from the roughcasting, this is less likely.

i dont think the new cast is the cause of your problems.
 
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Go into your loft and check the trusses at soffit level, it may be the roof painters have painted over broken/cracked tiles at eaves level and after this spate of bad weather is only now showing up. The water can be penetrating and tracking back under soffitts into cavity.

Also the abutment from neighbours property (the flashing) may be choked up with chips from the roughcasting, this is less likely.
i dont think the new cast is the cause of your problems.

I'd agree with Alastair. A coat of new roughcast shouldn't cause damp problems. As he says, if you have any cracked roof tile/s, the freezing weather we've had lately could have made any crack even worse. What type of joint is there between the neighbours new roughcast and your roughcast,, (plain s/s stopbead)? Why did they roughcast onto your property in the first place?? Did you know that was going to happen, did they discuss it with you?
 
Why did they roughcast onto your property in the first place?? Did you know that was going to happen, did they discuss it with you?

My thoughts exactly :confused:

The builders ****ed up, I raised this with the neighbours as soon as I noticed but it's not yet been fixed. I also mentioned it to the builder when they were still onsite who some how thought it was MY mistake for not noticing that THEY had chipped off my roughtcast ... I really don't know what difference that would have made, it they had already removed it, it wasn't going to fix itself.

We had really bad snow last year and never had a problem. We were on holiday at the time so the heating was hardly on, it just seem like too much of a coincidence that it has happened now.
 
What type of joint is there between the neighbours new roughcast and your roughcast,, (plain s/s stopbead)?

I'm a novice so don't really know, the inserted a metal "runner" between the new and old. They roughcast was properly sealed on the neighbours side but there was an obvious gap the length of the house and along the PVC facia on our side where they had not bothered to seal it.
 
Is the guttering Ok? heavy snow like we have had can easily crack or damage guttering especailly as snow slips off the roof.

You could really do with getting a ladder and having a close look at the roof tiles and the soffit etc in that area.
 
You have a couple of aerial coaxial cables entering the roof at the same point of the dampness, worth a look.
 
What type of joint is there between the neighbours new roughcast and your roughcast,, (plain s/s stopbead)?

I'm a novice so don't really know, the inserted a metal "runner" between the new and old. They roughcast was properly sealed on the neighbours side but there was an obvious gap the length of the house and along the PVC facia on our side where they had not bothered to seal it.

The metal "runner" you refer to, would be a render stop bead. Also, the "gap" you mention between the back of the bead and your roughcast, would not let any damp/water into your property at all, although it would be an advantage to seal it, just in case any moisture/water freezes in the gap behind the bead, and loosens it. Again, the "gap" between the PVC "soffit" and the roughcast,, (due to minor shrinkage, it always happens), but it wouldn't let damp/water into your house either, but as said before, it's better sealed with mastic/silicone,, you can get colours to suit most roughcast/render.
I'd go with Alastair though, and be inclined to check the roof space/tiles in that area. Put some dry newspaper in the roofspace, around the suspect area, and keep checking it when it snows/rains, to see if any water is dripping onto it.
 
Sorry for not replying sooner.

Thanks for the all the advice, I have been into the loft however I haven't managed to get into that corner just yet, so I could only do a visual inspection. Getting in and out of the loft was hard so over the bank holiday I fitted a loft ladder to make access easier. Now that that’s in it should make access easier.

I found small amounts of water on the insulation but no evidence of water getting in. Also some of the roof wooden panels look a bit damp could this be a condensation problem?
 

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