Damp

[Kelly4]

Me again!!

How have people successfully dealt with rising damp in old houses? Our locals build another wall in front of the offending walls and leave the damp to enjoy itself in the main walls. Any other solutions?

The house is built with local stone (and sand and earth and pebbles and probably tin cans and the odd shoe) on limestone. The architect said that the damp was due to a basic capillary process and that the old walls seem to be able to handle it without affecting the structure, as long as they are not covered with tiles (which causes the damp to rise above the tiles) or plastic paint, which just bubbles and flakes off.

In the UK, our damp was sorted with some kind of injectable treatment system. Does this exist here? Does anyone know whether there are specialist firms around who offer this?

Also, in my mum's little house, we started off using normal matt paint on the walls. A lot of brown stains are showing through. We've just started to use something called Caucho but it's too soon to see whether this is working. Anyone have any experience of caucho (or other good products forcovering brown damp stains)? We've got another two rooms to paint and we don't want to fork out on more caucho if the stains are just going to seep through within a month.

Cheers in advance,

kelly

[hillybilly]

Damp is just one of the many delightful hazards in most old Spanish houses! Your architect's suggestion is the one many people go for if concerned about it. But first, you have to be sure where the damp is coming from and if at all possible remove the cause of it.

If it is the "normal" rising kind, then you can either build the defensive false wall or live with it and assist your house to deal with it - as your architect suggests, don't tile or otherwise clad the walls, use breathable paint (limewash/distemper) and keep the rooms well-ventilated and heated to help disperse the moisture. If any re-rendering is needed use a lime based render suitable for use on stone such as Weber Pral.

[country boy]

Our house is 150 years old and is built into rising ground to the rear (North aspect) by about 1.5 metres.
The walls are about 600mm thick and have a 100mm Batter. They are constructed of large rocks,clay,small rocks and gravel and rendered. The Lintels are old Agave Flower stalks.
My solution was to take up the various floors, leaving the compacted sub-strate, lay a 100mm concrete oversite withing the buildings and then build an internal single-leaf skin ...a house within a house. The walls are now sound and vertical; all services were laid within the new cavity, including central heating, TV and and spare ducting. We have been here for six years now and I am very pleased with it. We have raised the lintel height of all doors in the old walls by simply taking out the old and shuttering-in new concrete in-situ. (No more "Duck or Grouse"). New roofs were added at the same time....good for another 150 years I reckon...wish I was still going to be here by then...I really do like it in Andalucia and I would like to go round again !!!

[Grouser]

We had problems with rising damp in our village house which is built directly on to the limestone rock. The damp would come up the walls and push the paint off. I have alleviated the problem, although not completely solved it by painting the walls with PVA and then re-painting them white. The damp has been greatly reduced as has the flaking paint. PVA would certainly solve your brown stain problem. It is available in Spain, although I don't know the product name there offhand.

[chrisuk]

I wonder if a drainage channe would work on the affected side of the house, ie: dig a trench slopping away and fill with stones, water then enters the channel and goes deeper and away, just an idea I saw in the UK. I may well be off the mark here....

[k]

I asked the question a good while back, I can't remember if answered on this site though, so searching might be pointless. My particular question was regarding internal walls that are below ground level , peeling paint, damp smell, brown marks etc. The guy that replied always seemed to know what he was talking about when building questions were posed. This might (or not) help ............


" There are a number of ways to stop penetrating damp, most effective is the "tanking" system which involves a layer system of bitumen paint and waterproof render. ask in your local builders merchants about "sika" products. another involves a kind of internal bubble wrap that traps moisture in a cavity and a sump pump, pumps it out, very expensive and gimmicky in my opinion. As for rising damp, there is a relatively new system that uses osmosis to cure it, its a bit technical so here is a web link http://www.humicontrol.com/H_Mursec_en.htm "

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