Discovery in my kitchen!

[chrislocalboy]

Long time reader first time poster, this one could not be answered by reading existing posts!

Its a little difficult to explain but we moved into the house more or less exactly 2 years ago, now we have a tiled floor in the kitchen which you'd expect to be cold anyway, now the last couple of weeks I've noticed the floor is a lot colder at one end than the other. At first I thought nothing of it..... but my curiosity got the better of me last night and I pulled panel at the bottom of the kitchen cupboards and got my torch in there.

I was kind of shocked to discover that there was no plaster on the wall at all and its just bare brick!! this wall is the end wall of the house...... so much so that you can see the holes that I'm assuming were drilled for the damp proof course.

Clearly whoever plastered or 'did up' the kitchen didn't bother to plaster down there..... out of sight out of mind???

Now I'm sure this is whats casuing the cold, I've also noticed a slight amount of damp inside the cupboard by the the affected wall.

So my question is what the hell can I do about it? and should I get out my damp proof certificate and ask the guy who did this (before I even moved in) to come round and check this under guarantee?

Sorry if this is not very clear but its difficult to describe, I'll see if I can get a photo of it later.... may help in understanding it anyways?

Thanks in advance

Chris

 

[noseall]

So my question is what the hell can I do about it? and should I get out my damp proof certificate and ask the guy who did this (before I even moved in) to come round and check this under guarantee?

i wouldn't imagine that the guarantee is worth mutch.

 

[chrislocalboy]

Nah its ok actually......we had some damp in the bathroom and my freshly painted wall bubbled..... I called him and he explained that a damp proof course only covers 3ft from the ground or something (I had no idea) but he came round and had a look anyway which was nice of him.

A few weeks before I'd discovered the gutter was letting water run onto the wall outside, this must of been happenning before I moved in and the wall must of been saturated. I repaired the gutter let the wall dry out during summer, painted the outside brickwork with some Thompson sealing and fixed it.

My point being he could of just told me that the couse only covers 3ft and that was that.... but he came round and checked anyway.

I've just checked my wall again and where the holes have been drilled for the coating covering the bricks has come off and not been put back, there's no obvious big holes where the cold could be coming in from but being down there you can really feel the cold coming out of the floor and from under the cupboards, you think just stuffing the cavity under the cuboard space with some insulation would help any? I think I've got some spare in the loft.... I'll attack any holes I can with some expanding foam as best I can first??

Any ideas?

 

[joe-90]

You've got it wrong. First of all you don't use plaster on outside walls and secondly you don't render right down to the floor because it bridges the damp course and invalidates the guarantee. It's just your imagination.

 

[chrislocalboy]

You've got it wrong. First of all you don't use plaster on outside walls and secondly you don't render right down to the floor because it bridges the damp course and invalidates the guarantee. It's just your imagination.

Read more carefully mate lol

Why would my kitchen cupboards be outside???

This is inside!!!

 

[pantsmachine]

Looks like its insulation stuffing or rip your kitchen out to fit a stud wall, guess its insulation time then! I have used expanding foam on council fitted boilers which were a bit rough at the exhaust pipe hole throught the wall. The cold was gone. I might be tempted to pull a cupboard or 2 out assuming you can drop the legs and unscrew from the surrounding units. You could then put a plastic membrane across your exposed wall to keep the moisture away from your kitchen and then insulate to your hearts content?