Hi, I live in a victorian terraced house, dining room looks out on to the yard, yard is lower / few steps down from house. In the corner of the room (corner of external and side of house) there has been a damp patch for years, about 30/40cm wide. On the outside of the external wall adjacent to the damp patch is, is where the garden wall butts up against the house. A large section of outside bricks always look damp and the area correlates with the position of the damp spot inside, though the area of the damp bricks is a fairly bigger area - 1 sq m.
ANYWAY! in trying to diagnose it, I did notice that at the exact point of the outside wall that correlates to the inside damp spot, there is some missing pointing - a little section where the garden wall meets house wall. So I have had some pointing put in to fill the gaps in the corner of the garden wall / house wall. I have also had the inside damp proofed - injected and rendered. Though the reality is that this is probably not rising damp - because when I look at the damp section of bricks outside it starts about three rows above the ground (the damp spot in the house is at floor level, but as I said the house is a few steps up from the yard).
So...I've damp proofed, pointed, Im also going to get gutter looked at to make sure water is not running down. But what else can I do as it is not obvious how the bricks are getting damp when plenty of bricks around the section look dry. Is it possible that if rain gets in through missing pointing that it can then spread through the bricks and pointing near that section? Or could it be that a section of bricks is simply more porous? All the bricks at the back of the house are of course over a hundred years old - clamp bricks?? They all have natural little cracks in them I guess.
Any ideas? Also I thought an additional thing I could do would be to paint the section with a water resistant sealant. I was going to buy Thompsons Water Seal, but B&Q only had the 1 coat version, and Im probably being stupid but the tin does not mention if it is breathable, which I am told is important. So I ended up getting one from another store, their home brand - Wickes Water Seal, which says it is breathable. Is this stuff any good? Also if I wait until it has not rained for a few days will it be ok to paint it on even if the bricks still look damp - its just that Im guessing they will probably still look damp even when its not raining.
Any advice appreciated!
ANYWAY! in trying to diagnose it, I did notice that at the exact point of the outside wall that correlates to the inside damp spot, there is some missing pointing - a little section where the garden wall meets house wall. So I have had some pointing put in to fill the gaps in the corner of the garden wall / house wall. I have also had the inside damp proofed - injected and rendered. Though the reality is that this is probably not rising damp - because when I look at the damp section of bricks outside it starts about three rows above the ground (the damp spot in the house is at floor level, but as I said the house is a few steps up from the yard).
So...I've damp proofed, pointed, Im also going to get gutter looked at to make sure water is not running down. But what else can I do as it is not obvious how the bricks are getting damp when plenty of bricks around the section look dry. Is it possible that if rain gets in through missing pointing that it can then spread through the bricks and pointing near that section? Or could it be that a section of bricks is simply more porous? All the bricks at the back of the house are of course over a hundred years old - clamp bricks?? They all have natural little cracks in them I guess.
Any ideas? Also I thought an additional thing I could do would be to paint the section with a water resistant sealant. I was going to buy Thompsons Water Seal, but B&Q only had the 1 coat version, and Im probably being stupid but the tin does not mention if it is breathable, which I am told is important. So I ended up getting one from another store, their home brand - Wickes Water Seal, which says it is breathable. Is this stuff any good? Also if I wait until it has not rained for a few days will it be ok to paint it on even if the bricks still look damp - its just that Im guessing they will probably still look damp even when its not raining.
Any advice appreciated!
