Damp proofing solid walls

[Primer]

Tank it on the inside and let it dry from the outside. Breathing damp and fungal spores is very bad for your health.

The walls need to breath on both sides. Fungal spores will appear 10 fold if you tank the inside and it will degrade the structure in time.

Solid walls constructed in lime need to be re-done in lime. Lime walls do hold more moisture but this has nothing to do with fungal spores, if the wall breaths the spores don't appear because they don't bread in walls that breath. You are giving out very bad advice that will cost many thousands to put right.

A little knowledge is dangerous.

 

[joe-90]

Don't talk silly - tank the bloody thing and live in a dry house - play your silly back to nature games with your own place.

 

[huddsspread]

Don't talk silly - tank the bloody thing and live in a dry house - play your silly back to nature games with your own place.

really shouldn't have took a swig of my vimto while reading this.....went down the wrong hole...pmsl

 

[Possel]

Chucka

You are clearly on almost the right track, and have been offered a lot of varying advice here. Let me add my tuppence-worth:

a. Firstly, you MUST find out WHY your walls "have penetrating wet from all sides top to bottom". It must be coming from somewhere and that has to be addressed urgently. Are your gutters and downpipes OK? Do you have high ground on the outside of your walls? Walls do take ages to dry out once you fix thes issues but you should see improvements after a few months if we get a summer!
b. You need both sides of your walls to breathe. I do not believe that a 20mm gap between wall and board on the inside is sufficient for ventilation, so I would use lime plaster inside
c. If you were to lay a concrete slab it would push any dampness to the edges thus making the base of the walls damp. A limecrete slab (with unsealed stone on top) would help breathability and so would not make the walls damp (and would stop your tiles fling clammy).
d. I would not paint the outside walls with anything unless it was already done with a traditional whitewash (etc), in which case use the same.
e. If the house was built with lime, then ONLY use lime products, not cement or gypsum at all.
f. Anything like tanking or a DPC only pushes the damp around and you just end up chasing it forever.
g. If you've not done so already, try researching old houses on Google - search "period property" and "dampness" and see what you get. Sadly far too many modern tradesmen know nothing about how to treat older property, so consider carefully the advice you get from potential contractors.
h. My credentials are that I bought a damp stone house in 2010 - holes in the roof, blocked gutters, cracked downpipes, plaster falling off inside, vegetation up the walls, high ground outside - and having fixed all those it is now dry, and I did not use any cement. See my blog at http://houseintheenchantedforest.blogspot.co.uk/ if you want the full story. If you're near Oxford then come and see.
i. Finally, don't make any permanent changes in a hurry!

Matthew