Is lime mortar?

[RhiannonS]

Hi

My boyfriend and I bought a house two years ago with some serious damp problems.

This morning I got up and found a lump of 'something' on the ground outside our back door. It was white and when my partner picked it up it crumbled to dust in his hands.

I can't see anywhere that stands out as somewhere it could have fallen from but I know nothing about building and neither does he!

Included photo of where it fell plus part of the chunk that was left and our house

 

[vinn]

Your "serious damp problems" might come from:

The possibly degrading sand and lime pointing of the stone.
The thin skim of rendering is also degraded.
If the render has been painted with a "plastic" paint instead of a masonry paint it will make any damp issues worse.
The rendering was probably applied in hope of dealing with penetrating damp issues.
The fact that the render is in ground contact (note where its green/moist)- it should stop 50mm higher than the ground.
Perhaps the flagged path or patio is too high - best practice has it 150mm below the inside FFL.
Are your interior floors solid?

Without closer detailed photos its impossible, for me anyway, to say where the "lump of something" came from?

 

[RhiannonS]

You certainly know your stuff, you nailed most of our house's problems even without helpful photographs!

The patio is too high. We have an air vent that ended up becoming a drain and causing some really bad problem because of how high the patio is. Thankfully that has now been sorted out.
We have solid floors in our kitchen and utility room, which is where the photo was taken

What sort of photos do you need? I'll see what I can do

 

[vinn]

Zoom in directly above where you found the lump.
The actual location of where the stuff came from wont actually be all that helpful to you.
The whole elevation probably needs re-doing, and doing bits here and there isn't the cost effective way to go about it.
The thing is that once you get the ladders up and start looking closely you might find a bunch of other defects - but you probably knew what you were getting into when you bought the old place.

 

[theprinceofdarkness]

How thick are your walls, its just that I have a stone cottage with 24" thick walls, I properly repointed it with lime mortar (2 1/2 :1, sharp sand , NHL5 lime)and its still damp. I have tried Thompsons damp seal and B&Q silicon. no change. The onlly thing I can think off is that the "builder" who rebuilt the roof, sealed the "cavity" with more then 53 large buckets of mortar. Now any damp that percolates through faulty stones can't evaporate away through the cavity, it just soaks through into the interior. Really needs the roof to be stripped again and this rubbish cleaned out (> £5K).
Frank
P.S. Anyone want to buy a beautiful cottage in sunny Wensleydale?