Damp Proofing Period Home

frankbruce

We've bought a period home and are looking to damp-proof the walls. There is a huge amount of choice around, we've been quoted €3,000 to inject silicone into the walls and then apply tanking slurry. Would people consider this a sound deal?

Roger Mellie Man on the Telly

What ‘period’? ‘Period’ is meaningless.
Without a visit to your house nobody can give you a repair methodology. There are far too many variables.

You should employ a conservation architect for informed independent advice.

Or take your chances. It might work out, or you might cause further damage to your house with an ill-considered ‘repair’.

frankbruce

130 years old, apologies! Understand a forum can only advise so far, but if someone has been in a similar position there is no harm in asking

jlm29

Is the house livable as it is? Does it definitely need damp proofing? Or could you live in it as it is for a winter and see how things are?

frankbruce

It is liveable, but it has definitely had damp issues and currently does also. Given its age, we don't want to spend money plastering when damp proofing should perhaps be done first.

Roger Mellie Man on the Telly

You need someone with a trained eye to look at the house. They will be able to identify the source/cause and type of damp. They will understand how the original building was constructed and advise the correct repair(s).

There are often aggravating factors caused by additional works over the lifetime of the building.

For information, injecting a damp proof course is generally futile.

frankbruce

Thanks so much for that. We are in the early stages of this, to be honest a conservation architect may be the way to go, that is the second time I've heard such advice.

jlm29

We had an engineer who specialises in old buildings (he had a fancy way of putting that, I can’t for the life of me recall his terminology!) out to do a compliance inspection on our house recently. You might find an engineer like him local to you.
Our house is 200 yrs old, we’ve been renovating in stages, though thankfully a lot of ours was cosmetic more than anything. We hadn’t any major damp, but had beef getting a few patches in recent times- we had to dig down the ground outside, because the levels were too high, and we put in footpaths, seems to have solved our problems - fingers crossed anyhow!
We had one room drylined, but I am so so wary of it. I don’t believe it can be good for the house. After seeing that episode of room to improve where the couple in Kildare found all that stuff growing behind their dry lining. I’m very nervous of it!

Cuddlesworth

I assume its rising damp in a basement your talking about based on the treatments.

The silicon injection stuff can work but if its 3 foot thick stone and clay walls, its almost impossible to get them 100% sealed. I think its still worth the go regardless, at worst it will limit the water ingress.

Sealing in the walls(tanking slurry), especially in something like a below ground basement, will cause the damp to just go higher within the wall if it can. Its used in modern builds because their is a damp proof course between the blockwork/concrete stopping water from going past the ground line. Without that, the water will continue to rise through the wall until it finds another way out.

So its important to understand that a badly sealed wall and tanking slurry, can simply just lead to more problems. Keeping that in mind, you want to stop the water ingress and be sure its been stopped, before applying any wall sealant.

frankbruce

Thanks so much for all your replies, very informative and helpful.