Water penetrating exposed brickwork.

[RP66]

I have a 1960's semi detached house.

The rear of the house is exposed to fields and when we have a combination of wind and rain I get water entering the top of my UPVC[Anglia] kitchen window.

What appears to be happening is that the wind is driving the water through the exposed brickwork above and it is running down the inside of the cavity wall and soaking through the plasterwork above the window.

It is not coming from the roof area as the window directly above the kitchen has no sign of any water coming in.

How do I overcome this problem and is it major?

Thanks for any help.

 

[KenGMac]

RP66, Hi

There is a high probability that the window has a so called boot lintel, if so and the age is about correct then this combined lintel will in all probability have a Lead Cored DPC.

This type of DPC is notorious for becoming, over time brittle, cracking and a failure occurs, the rain water inside the cavity hits the DPC and instead of being evacuated runs into the property on the inner surface of the wall.

Repair is problematic, it is a difficult repair to replace a DPC in this position, inside a cavity as can be imagined, removal and support of the outer leaf whilst replacing the DPC between the inner leaf and the lintel, support is a major factor to the external leaf above the lintel.

One thought? drill some holes above the concrete lintel, install some weep holes and thus reduce the water ponding within the cavity, problem here is that you may well exacerbate the problem if you drill through the remnants of the DPC?

One other problem is that there is a high probability that there is a load of dropped mortar sitting on top of the lintel thus allowing a bridge to occur?

Hope this assists?

ken