Hello. The floor/walls line we'll talk about here was originally external, but now is next to an extension.
When I found them, a lot of the plaster along the bottom 50cm or so of these walls was blown or a damp mush and the wallpaper was lifted. The walls affected are marked in red here, to give you an idea:
Some stretches of the wall had strange masonry skirting boards, or something along those lines:
They were loose and I removed them. They weren't part of the same "mould" as the floor slab, instead they were wedged in between the edge of the floor slab and the brickwork, thus:
What lay beneath them, or beneath the slab, I did not know. I removed the damaged plaster, put a wooden batten along the base of the brickwork (an inch or two above the floor slab's level) and plastered from there up to the remaining old plaster with Thistle Hardwall.
In one spot the edge of the floor slab is damaged and all of the roots of the skirting have been taken out. It seems that just a couple of inches down I'm actually contacting "soil", and it's all quite damp. Here are some pictures:
Close-up on the point marked in red above:
Some of what can be extracted from the hole:
So, clearly there is no damp-proofing or seal that extends out through the walls, and basically the room is open to the ground up the side of floor slab, right?
1) Can anything realistically be done to fix that or would it require very extensive work and almost a complete rebuild of the floor and lower walls?
2) If not, is it worth at least filling that hole with anything, or would it be best to leave it open to air?
3) If I put wood skirting up (nailed to the battens) should the gap that I left between the battens and the floor level stop damp getting to the new plaster, or will it just soak up the bricks and then ruin it again along the whole stretch of this particular wall/floor interface?
Thanks very much
When I found them, a lot of the plaster along the bottom 50cm or so of these walls was blown or a damp mush and the wallpaper was lifted. The walls affected are marked in red here, to give you an idea:
Some stretches of the wall had strange masonry skirting boards, or something along those lines:
They were loose and I removed them. They weren't part of the same "mould" as the floor slab, instead they were wedged in between the edge of the floor slab and the brickwork, thus:
What lay beneath them, or beneath the slab, I did not know. I removed the damaged plaster, put a wooden batten along the base of the brickwork (an inch or two above the floor slab's level) and plastered from there up to the remaining old plaster with Thistle Hardwall.
In one spot the edge of the floor slab is damaged and all of the roots of the skirting have been taken out. It seems that just a couple of inches down I'm actually contacting "soil", and it's all quite damp. Here are some pictures:
Close-up on the point marked in red above:
Some of what can be extracted from the hole:
So, clearly there is no damp-proofing or seal that extends out through the walls, and basically the room is open to the ground up the side of floor slab, right?
1) Can anything realistically be done to fix that or would it require very extensive work and almost a complete rebuild of the floor and lower walls?
2) If not, is it worth at least filling that hole with anything, or would it be best to leave it open to air?
3) If I put wood skirting up (nailed to the battens) should the gap that I left between the battens and the floor level stop damp getting to the new plaster, or will it just soak up the bricks and then ruin it again along the whole stretch of this particular wall/floor interface?
Thanks very much
