Hello all,
We have been in our house for eight years, originally built in the 40's we put a single story extension onto the side seven years ago. The side in question is east facing and gets a lot of weather on it straight off the north York moors. The house is on a slope so consequently the east wall of the old house and the joined newer extension has a ground to DPC distance of about 30".
When we bought the property we had to have a new injected DPC installed by a damp proofing company as part of our mortgage deal. The original canvas course had failed as had a previous injected DPC installed some years later. The bricks below the original DPC of the east wall of the old house are dark in colour, damp and take ages to dry out. Over the past few years of bad winter weather several of the bricks are flaking and crumbling from ground level to around three courses up. I know reading from other posts that if the wall was not always damp I could cut out the offending bricks and replace, using the correct brick type and mortar mix, or even render below the DPC down to just above ground level. However, as the east wall, an area of around 30 ft x 30 " is damp most of the time could I even do this?
Would I be better off protecting the wall below the DPC with cladding of some sort allowing it to breath after any flaking had been rectified? or even, and this may sound off the wall (if you pardon the pun) putting in another DPC just above ground level?
Anyone out there with advice about my wet wall predicament. Is theoldun about!! Thanks in anticipation.
BB
We have been in our house for eight years, originally built in the 40's we put a single story extension onto the side seven years ago. The side in question is east facing and gets a lot of weather on it straight off the north York moors. The house is on a slope so consequently the east wall of the old house and the joined newer extension has a ground to DPC distance of about 30".
When we bought the property we had to have a new injected DPC installed by a damp proofing company as part of our mortgage deal. The original canvas course had failed as had a previous injected DPC installed some years later. The bricks below the original DPC of the east wall of the old house are dark in colour, damp and take ages to dry out. Over the past few years of bad winter weather several of the bricks are flaking and crumbling from ground level to around three courses up. I know reading from other posts that if the wall was not always damp I could cut out the offending bricks and replace, using the correct brick type and mortar mix, or even render below the DPC down to just above ground level. However, as the east wall, an area of around 30 ft x 30 " is damp most of the time could I even do this?
Would I be better off protecting the wall below the DPC with cladding of some sort allowing it to breath after any flaking had been rectified? or even, and this may sound off the wall (if you pardon the pun) putting in another DPC just above ground level?
Anyone out there with advice about my wet wall predicament. Is theoldun about!! Thanks in anticipation.
BB
