"If you can assess a situation, with a certainty hinted at by your question, at the distance we're dealing with here, on the basis of the information provided so far, you're a better man than me."

Which is why I question the advice of hacking off the whole wall without knowing the cause of the problem/damp. I wouldnt do it unless I had visited the site. Is all Im sayin

bot - The usual way is to take off the plaster up to about 1 metre. It's the old injected dpc procedure described in their spiel because "rising damp doesn't go further up than a metre, missus". But they had a point. My point is that, given all that the walls have been subjected to in the past, it's best to start again with a blank canvas on a base you're sure of and do the job properly this time. That was a lesson I learnt 23 years ago, when we had our previous place renovated, which was supposed to include full replastering. We weren't living in the place and were only able to visit to check on the work every couple of days. Went after they'd done the kitchen and noticed they'd only done half the one wall, where the original plaster had shown signs of failure due to salts leaching out of the brickwork. They'd hacked off the old plaster in the affected top half of the wall and replastered. Three months after we'd moved back in we came back one evening to find that whole wall of plaster leaning out over the dining table, complete with radiator.

We had to threaten the builder with court to make him repair the wall. The plasterer who came to do the job said that his boss had told him to just paint the wall with pva and re-plaster what he could see, to leave the bottom half of the wall because, although it sounded "a bit hollow", it would probably be OK, and "anyway, the problem's in the top half of the wall".

Two guys used to do work for me and I had all the time in the world for them because they wouldn't accept half-measures. They worked to the same principle that governed my actions, it used to be on large posters wherever you went when I was in the RAF and working on aircraft: "Don't assume, CHECK!"

I only take risks with my own money and my own property.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: Joiner</cite> They worked to the same principle that governed my actions, it used to be on large posters wherever you went when I was in the RAF and working on aircraft: "Don't assume, CHECK!"</blockquote>

IIRC, didn't there also used to be one that read "To assume makes an ASS out of U and ME"?

Johnnie Walker Black, the breakfast of champions - accept no substitutes...

And have you noticed we're on page 6 of this thread and nothing has been determined?

It's called the creepy hand of Fate.

(Cue ominous music.)

A couple of thoughts from the now famous armchair

Posted By: babs30Its raining very heavy here at the moment and on impulse i stuck my finger into the larger hole.......its wet, very wet

Maybe this sends its own message. You could play being a Dutch boy, but I don't see this as a permanent solution. Is the ground level at the problem place below the floor level? By much?
Also could be water running down the wall finding a crack in the rendering (especially a horizontal one (gathers more water)) tracking along the crack and disappearing into the wall to reappear after following the easiest route, which happens to be just above the skirting board were it would drip onto the floor if it were not for a finger stuck in the hole.
I have a couple of stone /earth buildings and with one of them you can actually see through the wall (50cm thick) in a couple of places. With this type of construction it is important to keep water (as opposed to damp) out of the wall as water can wash out the earth filler and the wall can then become unstable.

Ooooh dear, I can see the headlines now...

"Body Recovered From House Ruins: Police sergeant Dermot Daly said that the body of a local woman had been found amongst the ruins of a house early on Saturday morning. He stated that officers at the scene had been visibly moved because the tragedy was that she probably could have escaped had one finger not been jammed in a hole in the wall. Close friends of the woman are reported to have said that there was no history of mental illness prior to her moving to the house."

OMG! Your taking the piss out of me and im petrifed! lmao
And i wont be killed off this morning as im working till 1 .......needs must

babs Did you check the ground level with respect to the floor level? If the GL is at or above the FL then this will cause all manner of problems. Regardless of the levels (within reason) this type of building will benefit from a french drain around the building to lower the watertable and help drainage.

In case you don't know a french drain is a ditch dug around the building usually about 50cm deep and 30cm wide filled with gravel or leca with the ability for water to flow away. If it is not provided with an outflow drain then you get a moat. They are very good at lowering the water and damp in walls. An important point is that the ditch MUST NOT be dug below the base of the foundations and preferably not quite as deep as the base of the foundations.

Posted By: Peter_in_HungaryAn important point is that the ditch MUST NOT be dug below the base of the foundations...

May or may not be relevant to babs30 but any suggestions for drainage around a building which doesn't have any significant foundations?

(The house I'm staying in at the moment is like that I think - doesn't appear to have much foundations and neighbour found himself looking at the bottom of his kitchen extension wall when trying to make a mini French drain by it. Desperately needs proper drainage around and, ideally, EWI. I'm not planning to stay but just curious what I could do if I was.)

Hi Babs,

I got into your thread because I've got damp/mould problems of my own. Just wanted to add an extra belated comment that if you do get another stove (and I would highly recommend that you do; you're going to be wasting an awful lot of energy up that chimney otherwise), be aware that all stoves are not created equal. I'm a Clearview fan myself, but Morso and the like are also really good (ie very effective). I never bother using coal on mine, because i can keep it in overnight on wood - and I can get the wood for free, so it's all payback. I'm not on oil; I'm on bottled gas and using my stove has meant that I've only used 4 bottles this season (I know it's been mild in places, but for a three bed solid walled semi heating and hot water, that's not bad).
It sounds like you have a lot of more pressing things on your plate at the moment, but I do think it would help at least warm the place up and dry it out. At the same time, it's arguable that you've got a lot of ventilation via the chimney, so before you do block it up, I'd want to have a ventilation strategy in place, or you may risk condensation/mould (if the former is a problem), getting worse. (I'm speaking from experience here:-()