Damp coming up from the ground?

[vinn]

If there are any live water pipes to be found under that part of the floor/wall what would they be supplying - the supplies for the sink and the appliance(s) are drops from above.

You must pull out the W/M and examine the supplies & skirting and wall/floor near the W/M waste but I doubt that a waste leak is the problem?
Take pics and a pic of the outside gulley.

On the face of it, it seems more likely to be rising damp?

 

[Nige F]

The main water supply comes in from the front, but then travels upwards in the wall between the lounge and the kitchen (in the middle of the house), supplying the upstairs bathroom. it runs above the kitchen ceiling and comes down in the corner of the little cupboard that I'm working on, to feed the boiler, which is housed in the cupboard.



It then goes directly into the floor, so you're right, it must be going underground from there to get to the kitchen area.

And the waste pipe in the floor is pushfit not solvent weld. ?

 

[JohnD]

pipes going into the floor...

 

[Dan45]

I've taken some detailed damp readings to try and get a clearer picture of what might be going on. Here's the right hand side:

This at least rules out damp coming from the external wall on the right.

Underneath the door frame, it gets drier towards the left:

And on the left hand side, the lower brick is relatively dry at 21. A section of plasterboard is very wet here. but just round the corner, inside the cupboard, it is completely dry. Could this be moist because it was in contact with the wet piece of wood that I removed?

So, I do seem to have identified a wet area, which doesn't quite correspond to the washing machine waste, but could be from either a buried water supply pipe, or reasonably localised rising damp. Does this sound right?

 

[Dan45]

Hold on! I just did some more damp testing around the kitchen. The wall to the left of the cupboard is quite saturated. From my excavations I can see that this wall (which is mostly internal), on either side of the doorway, is sitting on brick foundations, with no damp course.

I think I might have to do an injection damp course as the first stage of treatment?

 

[John D v2.0]

Don't get carried away with the damp meter. Especially With it being in a kitchen it's possible the damp is actually condensation due to the cold from the ground conducting through the bricks.
I found in our house we had damp on the walls in the lounge, internal masonry wall. When I took up the floor it was actually drier under the dpc.
In the end I got an ir thermometer and found that all the dark/damp areas were slightly cooler than the rest.

 

[Dan45]

I had a plumber round who said its very unlikely to be from a leaking pipe , and recommends getting someone to put a membrane down. This is something I could probably do myself, before retiling and making a new door frame

 

[JohnD]

unlikely to be from a leaking pipe

I wonder why? It does seem to be very localised.

 

[Nige F]

Funny thing is I would have suspected a leaking pipe and offered to cut into them and pressurise with a hydraulic test pump, including the push fit waste.....all for £87.....no VAT So opinion is divided....over to you, Original Poster.

 

[JohnD]

'mmm

a wet patch in one corner of a kitchen.

close to some old pipes

what's the most likely cause?

 

[JohnD]

all the dark/damp areas were slightly cooler than the rest.

condensation donates heat to the surface it condenses on

but when water evaporates off damp materials it makes them colder.

Which is the cause, and which is the effect?

 

[Doggit]

Now what sort of damp meter are you using. If it's a wood meter, it'll give you a relative indication in comparison to the rest of the kitchen, but won't actually tell you if you've got damp. You'd need a specialist company to tell you that. Looking at the state of the original kitchen, there was mould in the cupboard, but that would have been from cold walls, and a lack of ventilation. But in leaving the wood in the walls, the builders were obviously cowboys. It's more than likely that you have no dpc in the floor, and that might well be travelling up into the walls, but no one can judge remotely. JohnD insists that it's a leaking pipe, but it could be simply that the water in the waste makes it colder there, but it may well be worth seeing if you can reroute the pipe to an outside wall, and that'll make certain for the future.

If you decide to lift the tiles, then you'll either go down about 6", or just uncover the old tiles, and then use a liquid dpm, and throw some sharp sand on before it goes off, then put down some self levelling compound. If you decide to make sure the walls are okay, then rather than inject, have a look at the safeguard silicone injection creams - there are a lot of cheaper poducts available; alternatively, they do a lot of plasters that will stop any damp coming through as well, after the mortar course has been drilled and injected.

 

[Dan45]

The plumber's reasoning was that a) the wall's damp, and is close to the outside of the house, with water coming in from the ground and outside, b) the boiler and washing machine are generating heat, which may be causing the damp, c) if it was leaking, water would be rising and "bubbling up", and it's only damp, and c) he's seen similar and investigated, and there was no pipe.

But he didn't mention any testing, he said the next stage for him, would be to take up tiles and look for pipes.

 

[John D v2.0]

condensation donates heat to the surface it condenses on

but when water evaporates off damp materials it makes them colder.

Which is the cause, and which is the effect?

Good point! I suppose you'd need other evidence eg work out the dew point to be sure.