Hi all, after a bit of advice with a current project I’m undertaking at the moment on a 1900 Victorian end terraced house.
Here is some info to give an idea of what I’m working with and I will get to the issues / questions after.
Wall construction is solid brick with a slate DPC which I have attached a photo of here
View attachment 18171
Unfortunately at some point in time the gable end wall has been rendered with sand and cement and a plinth render has been applied around the perimeter excluding the front of the house. I’ve attached a photo of the gable end wall of my property here
View attachment 18169
You can see the plinth render here (ignore all of the stuff - skip coming tomorrow)
and also a photo of the gable end wall of the other side of the row of houses (not my house, - yes they’ve had chemical dpc)
The inside wall of the gable end has also had the old horsehair plaster removed and has been done in sand and cement minus around 200mm at the bottom which was gypsum (fallen off , wall is wet behind it) photo here
I have chipped off some of the cement render and the wall is actually dry behind it, only wet where the gypsum was.
the ground level at the front of the house has unfortunately bridged the dpc. Not sure if there is much I can do about this - photo here
The metal plate is to the basement, and has holes for airflow
Here is a patch in the middle room that has fallen off, crumbly wet gypsum, wet bricks
And the other side of that wall here
Cement render + plinth render - they did leave 2 air bricks
Also unfortunately the house has been painted and sections have been repointed with cement.
So - I know the best thing for this house will be to remove the sand and cement and remove the paint however this is not going to happen without causing serious damage to the bricks. Where I have taken the render off it has removed part of the bricks.
I have already dropped the ground level by removing 10 tonnes of soil a previous owner had brought in so we are now below the dpc at the back of the house.
The only places inside that are wet - are areas that have been plastered with gypsum. Immediately as it goes back to lime plaster it’s dry and none of the lime plaster has blown.
Because of this I was thinking that the issue would be condensation however there was a major leak in the downstairs bathroom and one of the walls in the bathroom is gypsum and is fine, rock hard and bone dry. I would have thought if it was condensation this would be wet - or maybe because it was tiled it was protected from the moisture?
My plan at the moment is to leave the sand and cement render on the gable wall inside and outside as there doesn’t appear to be an issue with it.
In the middle room I plan on removing the render on the outside of the window as the issue there seems to be bigger and the amount of render is a lot smaller.
Replaster everywhere using lime.
Would it be a good idea to remove the plinth and leave 500mm exposed brick around the perimeter or will this cause more issues as the inside of that wall is also s & c ?
Another thing that I can’t seem to figure out is why there are patches that have been done with gypsum, below windows, around skirting boards. They aren’t just little fills they are back to brick the whole lot done with gypsum plaster. Did the lime plaster fail in that area or was it for other reasons.
Last thing I want to do is re plaster the whole house with lime and still have issues.
Any thoughts on my approach ?
Any advice?
Much appreciated
Here is some info to give an idea of what I’m working with and I will get to the issues / questions after.
Wall construction is solid brick with a slate DPC which I have attached a photo of here
View attachment 18171
Unfortunately at some point in time the gable end wall has been rendered with sand and cement and a plinth render has been applied around the perimeter excluding the front of the house. I’ve attached a photo of the gable end wall of my property here
View attachment 18169
You can see the plinth render here (ignore all of the stuff - skip coming tomorrow)
and also a photo of the gable end wall of the other side of the row of houses (not my house, - yes they’ve had chemical dpc)
The inside wall of the gable end has also had the old horsehair plaster removed and has been done in sand and cement minus around 200mm at the bottom which was gypsum (fallen off , wall is wet behind it) photo here
I have chipped off some of the cement render and the wall is actually dry behind it, only wet where the gypsum was.
the ground level at the front of the house has unfortunately bridged the dpc. Not sure if there is much I can do about this - photo here
The metal plate is to the basement, and has holes for airflow
Here is a patch in the middle room that has fallen off, crumbly wet gypsum, wet bricks
And the other side of that wall here
Cement render + plinth render - they did leave 2 air bricks
Also unfortunately the house has been painted and sections have been repointed with cement.
So - I know the best thing for this house will be to remove the sand and cement and remove the paint however this is not going to happen without causing serious damage to the bricks. Where I have taken the render off it has removed part of the bricks.
I have already dropped the ground level by removing 10 tonnes of soil a previous owner had brought in so we are now below the dpc at the back of the house.
The only places inside that are wet - are areas that have been plastered with gypsum. Immediately as it goes back to lime plaster it’s dry and none of the lime plaster has blown.
Because of this I was thinking that the issue would be condensation however there was a major leak in the downstairs bathroom and one of the walls in the bathroom is gypsum and is fine, rock hard and bone dry. I would have thought if it was condensation this would be wet - or maybe because it was tiled it was protected from the moisture?
My plan at the moment is to leave the sand and cement render on the gable wall inside and outside as there doesn’t appear to be an issue with it.
In the middle room I plan on removing the render on the outside of the window as the issue there seems to be bigger and the amount of render is a lot smaller.
Replaster everywhere using lime.
Would it be a good idea to remove the plinth and leave 500mm exposed brick around the perimeter or will this cause more issues as the inside of that wall is also s & c ?
Another thing that I can’t seem to figure out is why there are patches that have been done with gypsum, below windows, around skirting boards. They aren’t just little fills they are back to brick the whole lot done with gypsum plaster. Did the lime plaster fail in that area or was it for other reasons.
Last thing I want to do is re plaster the whole house with lime and still have issues.
Any thoughts on my approach ?
Any advice?
Much appreciated