Front porch, lack of vent, damp smell

[Aze]

Hi to everyone,

I have recently bought a house with some sort of front porch.

There are external doors (white) then porch it self with a cupboard on the left and another pair of doors right to inside of the house.

Spoiler: Front

Spoiler: Porch inside

Spoiler: Cupboard on the left

There were plenty of carpet cuts lying down in front porch. When we took them all away we found some sort of mould and damp smell right under them.

In side cupboard on external hard board wall was some sort of mould, little bit. We wipped it off. We've also cleaned floors with some liquid thing and all has gone now.

It does smell better and etc. I was thinking about cutting bit of a plastic from external doors and cupboard doors and put vent grills there.

Friend of mine said to me to do vent grills and leave it like that for few weeks to let it dry out. Once it dry, then clear walls from broken plaster.

What do you think? Can I do it up quicker some how?
my survey said that it could be caused by condensation rather than rising damp, etc


I was thinking about drying it up,
Doing up vent,
Using some damp proof on walls and floors,
PVA then tiles on floor,

There is a heater inside of the porch, I think that heater + good vent will do?

 

[foxhole]

Is it a single skin wall?

 

[Aze]

Which wall?

There is a cavity wall + hard board then porch then hard board to living.
There was barely any mould on that cavity side. Little bit, wipped easy.

Thing is that it smells bad there as there is no fresh air coming in. And there was no fresh coming in for few years.

 

[Burnerman]

At a guess I'd say you have some damp rising through your porch floor......maybe it was build on some existing step or whatever, which didn't have a damp proof membrane?
Have a look at Permagard products for something to coat your floor with before you consider another sort of covering.
John

 

[foxhole]

Which wall?

There is a cavity wall + hard board then porch then hard board to living.
There was barely any mould on that cavity side. Little bit, wipped easy.

Thing is that it smells bad there as there is no fresh air coming in. And there was no fresh coming in for few years.

Can't imagine what this would look like, hard board walls?

 

[Burnerman]

Who knows.....I'm imagining this to be like a porch constructed for my M.I.L. - cavity walls on an existing solid concrete slab, the original large step if you like..... a tidy job too.
Moisture still wicks up through the slab though, the plaster blisters and the damp smell is always there. Oh well.
John