Treating/Painting a gable end wall

M

mattih5

Hi,

I'm new on here to hopefully I can word this correctly as I'm fairly new to DIY so please bear with me. We purchased our first house , a 1880 stone terraced house, a year ago. We ran into issues in the first 6 month regarding condensation which I think is basically down to our naivety.

Basically we were using the spare bedroom to store several large boxes from TV purchases etc but the mistake we made being that we leaned them against the newly decorated gable end wall and used the room to dry cloths without ventilation. As you can guess after moving the boxes we were presented with a behemoth of mould spores.

After spending a long time removing the wall paper and some silicone backed lining we now have a bear wall to decorate. We have wised up to the whole condensation and mould issues by ventilating, drying cloths outside if possible and using water traps throughout the house.

My reason for the post is that I've been told that the walls need sealing. The previous owners used a silicone lining to stick the wall paper so there hasn't been any form of paste applied to the wall, the silicone seemed to enhance the mould issues as they'd spread quite rapidly under the wall-paper. The most crucial thing is I'd like to paint the wall with some protective paint or treatment to reduce as much as possible the likelihood of mould forming. We've had the walls bear for 6 month now and no signs of mould have come back.

So in short, I have two bedrooms one with plain plaster and one that has been painted. Both gable-end walls I'll be re-painting but would like to reduce the whole mould thing as much as possible. I've been told of additives etc but I'm not entirely sure what the best approach is. I've bleached the painted wall several times to remove the mould growth which seems to have worked. The only traces being black marks on the brown paint which I can't remove.

I've read up on countless sites that gable end and especially corners are notorious for condensation forming, especially in old houses like mine. I'd like to reduce this as much as possible without having to create a heated cavity or any major structure enhancements.
 
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These gable walls are a cold spot that attracts condensation, one way to solve this is to apply a thermal lining paper and then decorate as required. If you want to just paint the walls then touch up the stains left by the removed mould with some stain block such as zinsser BIN or a thinned oil based undercoat will do. then paint with an emulsion that contains a mould inhibitor, all the major paint manufacturers make this type of emulsion, Johnstones and Crown do good ones.
 
So the zinsser BIN is just to cover up any stains? It isn't specifically for preventing mould from re-growth?
 
Yes the BIN blocks stains, the mould inhibiting emulsion will ensure no regrowth of mould.
 
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you will still need to increase airflow, an airbrick would help. I'd be tempted to dot'n'dab polystyrene backed plasterboard over the wall. It does mean removing the skirting and trimming the carpet.

It will be more costly but more effective than thermal backing paper and you have the advantage of having a nice new wall to paint.

I do however have reservations about the other exterior walls in the room becoming the obvious thermal bridge if you boost the thermal qualities of the gable end wall.
 
opps will adding the new wall not simply hide the problem?

The polystyrene backing on the plasterboard will be vastly superior to any thermal lining paper.

http://www.condell-ltd.com/Page.aspx?catid=1066&gclid=CLTYytuIyrMCFXDLtAodfzEAGQ

BTW i have never used the above site, it was the first one google showed me but i wanted you to see the product. You can get up to 9cm of foam backing.

Fitting the plasterboard is within the realms of a skilled diyer but I would advise against tape and join, hence you will need a plasterer to skim it, in which case you might as well let them put the stuff up in the first place.

The first caveat that springs to mind is that any electrical sockets on the walls might need to have the wiring extended, depends on the thickness of the plasterboard and the play in the cables, sometimes you can circumnavigate the problem by allowing the sockets to drop down an inch or two lower.

I might be wrong but provided that there is not water ingress from outside, the plasterboard AND ventilation will solve the problem.

Unfortunately people hate the idea of air vents, I can understand why but you will need one. Failure to fit one might result in mold in the corners where air flow is minimal. There are more expensive options such as passive air vents that use a flap that will only open when the air pressure inside is higher than outside, alternatively you could fit a decent extractor with a humidistat. The later, though, will create noise and have running costs
 
No. He's right.

Crikey, it's been a long time since Joe 90 agreed with me, mind you I haven't been here for a while...

Nice to see that the backstabing between some of the other memebers seems to have ceased.

BTW I hope that you (Joe) have finally tried Owatrol paint oil ;)
 
No still not tried it - I'm drifting toward water based due to the yellowing issues.
 
No still not tried it - I'm drifting toward water based due to the yellowing issues.

S'funny, they reduce the VOCs and I now have to use 3 additives to put the "goodness" back into the oil based paints.

I still hate water based so I am drifting towards the super high VOC isocyante 2 pack finishes... no yellowing there, just fecks my lungs up ;)
 

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