Hi

I have started to strip the wallpaper in my front room (the red painted paper is the chimney breast) and this is what I've come across!

How bad does it look and whats the best course to treat it?









And the front of the breast is

From the looks of the photos the fireplace has been blocked off and no air brick/ventilation installed.

If you are opening up the fireplace then you may want to consider reskimming the walls.

If its staying blocked up then you'll want a couple of airbricks/vents as well as skimming.

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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....

Theres no sign of any vents, any chimney blocked up must have a rain/bird guard cowl, for ventilation, also vents to be fitted inside.

Doesn't look nice. I'd go to property-care.org and look for a contractor in your area. Get a qualified surveyor out (you can often get this for free, but even if you have to pay £75 that's money well spent).

There are several issues that could be at play:
- hygroscopic salts from soot etc. could be drawing moisture into the plaster and ruining it (important to maintain ventilation in the chimney to prevent this being a future problem)
- rising damp/'bridging'
- moisture running down the chimney (not likely to be a problem)

Without a closer look I think that you're looking at stripping that plaster and installing salt protection (eg. sbr latex) and then replastering. While you're at that unless you know that you've got a good damp proof course you may as well put one in.

Hope that helps,

Ben