Dry rot?

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I was looking at a friend's wall the other day, it had previously been rendered and tiled but the tiles started falling off and the render was hacked away.

There is evidence of effervescence but I did notice a couple of bits in some of the brick mortar that almost looked like thick spider webs.

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Above is part of the wall. Below is a zoomed in photo 0f one of the web type areas.

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I pushed the web with my pocket knife and when I removed the pressure, the web bounced back.

The room is a kitchen with a recirculating cooker hood. The render was removed last year.

Might it be dry rot?
 
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It's difficult to tell given that it is a kitchen that leads on to a conservatory. Total floor space is approximately 30sq metres.


The kitchen cabinets span the whole of an exterior wall. I suspect that the DPC has failed. I can see rising damp in another room on the same wall. The property is about 120 years old and poorly maintained.
 
In my own experience a lot of old properties with lime mortar and lime plaster have got the dry rot fungus, somewhere or other. Itcseems to.live between masonry and lime plaster and can travel a fair distance through lime mortar and porous masonry providing it has a source of moisture. Sometimes it is so bad that we need to resin anchor steel angle plates to the walls to carry new floor joists and/or beams. This is in order to get separation between the new floor structure and the old infected masonry. Main way to keep it inactive is simply to ensure that there is sufficient ventilation and air flow so that floor voids, etc remain dry. Also check for blocked leaking or overflowing gutters and down pipes outside and make sure that roofs are weather tight
 
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I'm no expert but that doesn't look anything like the dry rot I have had to deal with in the past. Is there any wood near by, it does spread through lime mortar looking for timber but as far as I know it will be attached to wood somewhere it needs a source of food and energy. the roots are quite fibrous and do look like roots off a plant.

get expert advise if you are unsure, dry rot can destroy your house, the stuff is a night mare with a capital F
 
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Older property has often had the exterior levels raised several times leading to breaching of any damp course and causing penetrating damp. Is the roof in good order?
 

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