Wet under textured paint

[GrahamT]

Hi

I recently put in a new kitchen and noticed, when core drilling the waste, that the 2 outside walls were very wet. The exterior is textured paint on render on cavity brick walls. There were a few blown areas and on inspection (I scraped off the paint and loose render) discovered that the wall was very wet. I have removed a large amount of the paint and the whole rendered wall was wet. It has since dried out.

I can't see an obvious reason as to why it was wet, although halfway up the wall I have 2 layers of exposed brickwork ( I guess for show) that looks like it needs repointing.

I'm guessing that the textured paint was trapping the damp so my questions are; is there a masonary paint that allows the wall to breathe?
and is the render, which runs from ground, all the way up, allowing water to bypass the DPC?

ANY help much appreciated.

Cheers,

Graham

 

[JohnD]

You say it's a kitchen? I'm thinking boiling kettles, pans, steaming sinks, maybe even a tumble drier without a vent hose to the outside world. If there were any leaky pipes or drips, they would add to the moisture in the room. So would a gas cooker.

So condensation, especially on outside walls.

If this is the case, there may be mildew, especially near the top of the wals or behind cupboards.

You can test by taping a piece of clear plastic very tightly to the wall. If moisture forms on the room side, it's condensation. If it forms on the wall side, it's coming from the wall.