Hi

I'm after some assistance please

Firstly a pic :



We bought this upper ground floor flat (Victorian building ) approx 6 months ago. Having ripped off the rather tasteful wallpaper in this room we found a slightly damp looking patch of plaster (but it felt fine to the touch) so didn't think much of it.

Weeks of hard work later ( it was a mess) and we just sized the walls 2 days ago and this is what we now see. All other walls are dried, apart from this area- the sizing is just not drying. Our powers of deduction (I can't believe we didn't notice it already) lead us to believe that there is a chimney behind this wall (completely internal as the other side is another bedroom). It can't be rising damp as we are quite a way off the ground and there is another flat above and below us.

I have no idea about whether this chimney might be being used by anyone else or what top/ cap or whatever its called it has.

There is no sign of ventilation into the room from the chimney (could there be one and its plastered over?) I don't know for sure whether the fireplace was on this wall or the other side but as there is a slight curve to this wall and there is a plug socket on the other side, my gut tells me the fireplace was on the side of the damp problem.

For all I know there may be damp on the other side too though although I can't see any signs of it.

So I need help.please ? I have no idea what to do / who to call. I just want to be able to decorate the room !

Hi Soozi,

If it's a chimney flue, then it looks very close to the door opening! Can you see the pot on the outside of the house in the corresponding position?

If the flue was in use, I doubt you would have damp and the wall would be warm to the touch.

The plaster looks fairly new? have you tried applying heat to the damp area with some sort of heater? I suspect the wall may dry out with time, could be worth whacking a dehumidifier in the room for a couple of days.

Let me know how you get on!

SSM

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Measure twice, cut once!

Hi and thank you

I would guess the plaster is 10 plus years old. I haven't checked for a stack but can't think of what else it could be.

Is there any reason why it wouldn't be drying off ? Could it be because there isn't any ventilation through the chimney into the room ?

The door is so close because its a stud wall put in when the building was converted into flats a good 20 years or so ago.

I haven't tried heater or dehumidifier

Interesting - you have floor boards in front of it, so it doesn't look like there was once a fireplace hearth there (would normally be some cement or something there I think).

We also had random damp problems on a chimney breast in one of our bedrooms. Thankfully it was a chimney we owned so we could muck about with it. It turns out that the previous owners had filled the chimney up with perlite (god knows why), and then the mortar around the chimney pots on the top of the chimney had deteriorated allowing water to go down the chimney which the perlite soaked up. So we just got random spots of damp coming through the plaster in the house.... sort of like you have. I'd be very surprised if you also had a chimney full of perlite, but if it is damp then it's got to be coming from somewhere. Since you are one storey up, the obvious choice is pipes or chimney some how.

I'm not sure what I'd suggest other than making friends with the people below you to see if they have a fireplace anywhere in alignment with this damp patch. Ultimately you may want to chisel it out a bit to see what's in there - a bit of a risk, but I'm sure you can always make good for decorating again.

Good luck!
Chris

I've come across similar with no obvious explanation. Emulsion paint in just a few aparently random patches of the room, some high, some low, some in corners, some in the middle of the wall etc. taking days to dry instead of hours. In my case I think it was because the wall had been reskimmed. Behind the new plaster the old plaster had been glossed many, many years earlier. Where some of this gloss remained where it hadn't been scraped or sanded off fully the wall was much less absorbant so the paint took much longer to dry. Nothing to be concerned about.

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Mike

What did you use to size the wall...not PVA I hope..Pva will stop any moisture evaporating & will not help when it comes to decorating....

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Verwood Handyman
I Know it says I'm On-line, but I might have just left myself logged in, whilst I'm out....

No , just diluted wallpaper paste !

OK everybody, panic over. move along now .....

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Verwood Handyman
I Know it says I'm On-line, but I might have just left myself logged in, whilst I'm out....

Panic not over !!!

I have approx 7 weeks before baby no 2 arrives and I have no where to put said baby at the moment as this room is my sons and he and all his stuff are currently sharing our room !!

Someone wave a magic wand please !!

Hi Soozi,

You still haven't said if there's a chimney above the damp wall? Have you tried heating the room and pointing some direct heat on the wall yet? Dehumidifier yet?

Was there a damp patch on the wallpaper you removed? Any musty smell or fungus?

Don't panic!

SSM

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Measure twice, cut once!

Sorry Soozi,

Just re-read your second post, a timber stud wall!!!!! Is there a sink or bathroom on the other side of the wall?

What you could do, is to cut say a 100mm square section out of the plasterboard (save the bit you cut out!) Investigate with a torch! If you do that, I'll then tell you how to repair it!

SSM

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Measure twice, cut once!

Sorry I've confused you

The wall with the damp patch on is solid brick. It has some sort of unused flue going behind (with an associated chimney on roof ). This flue is in my downstairs neighbours flat and my upstairs neighbours flat too as would be expected. We have no idea what it is - no one remembers any fire places here and there are no hearths on any of the 3 floors.

There is no dampness anywhere else that we know of - but then the only reason we know of this damp patch is because we have removed the wallpaper. I've turned the radiator on full blast in that room to see if I can dry it out a bit. It seems to be slowly drying out maybe , but it still doesn't give me a reason as to why that wall is damp and I don't want to decorate and then have damp coming through.

There was no evidence of this damp previous to taking the wallpAper off, no smell or mould.

Oh and there is no opening to the flue anywhere- at some point each floor has been plastered over and no ventilation has been put in.

Hi Soozi,

Expensive problem, you need to make sure where ever the flue exits the roof that there is a cowl fitted and stop water entering the flue. Ideally, there should be a vent fitted where the flue terminates at the base of the building.

Or, you could try this!

http://www.saversystems.com/acrylic_wat ... sealer.php

Hack off the plaster over the affected area, coat with this stuff then re-skim, bit of a bodge really! Might be better to let the damp dry, could be the bad weather recently and the wind blowing from a different direction than usual.

If you get the problem sorted properly, the other leaseholders will have to chip in for the repairs!

Good luck!
SSM

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Measure twice, cut once!