Help - mould - partner wants to remove lime plaster!

[philv]

hi

We have a small victorian terrace.
Needs renovation.

There have been various leaks in bathroom room above kitchen.
We had new central heating and rewire done when we first move in.

My partner says there is mould in the small kitchen.
She cleaned it a year ago.
Theres no odour, no damp or change in colour since.

She wants to remove all the lime plaster around the bottom of the kitchen walls up to a height of 100 cm!

She insists there will be spores in the plaster, etc etc.

There are lots of water pipes, electric cables and big gas pipe along the walls.
The new boiler is in the kitchen.

Is this neccesay?

She says we should remove the plaster and shell redo it without moving the cables and pipes.

What would you do?

It seems crazy to me.

I have told her of a product calked fungblitz etc but she says no.

 

[philv]

She wants to remove 7 square meters of lime plaster.

 

[a twig]

You sure it is lime? A lot of it looks like gypsum to me from the photos

 

[philv]

It wouldn't surprise me.
There is an old 2 meter extension to it.
Thats the extended bit with the piping, etc.

I think the rest ls lime.
But who knows.
It doesn't fizz when a bit put in water.

 

[philv]

Here is a bit of the original kitchen part.
Where an old plug socket was.

Does it look like gypsum layer on lime layer?
7 cm deep to bricks.

To note that builders who did extension in past also put modern plasterboard over cracked lime plaster ceiling in kitchen.

 

[mardinor]

TLDR: the problem is your partner, not the wall.

Hacking off plaster to 1m is very rarely the solution (only where plaster is saturated with hygroscopic salts). But it is the standard fix recommended by virtually all builders and damp proof companies, so they can sell a lot of work which doesn't work.
Hard to tell from your photos what the plaster is, but whether gypsum or lime I'd leave it alone. There is no problem to fix, and those pipes would be a nightmare to replumb.

Mould is mainly caused by condensation and lack of air movement, rarely from rising or penetrating damp or leaks. Condensation is caused by excess water vapour, trapped by modern double glazed windows.

Fix the moisture vapour and the mould won't grow. Spores are everywhere, always, in the air. Suggest buying a condensing tumble dryer, or add trickle vents to those windows, or fit a PIV. And when you refit teh kitchen cupboards, leave a vented air gap behind.

Good luck - fixing a partner is the one thing harder than fixing damp...

 

[paulc]

Trying to plaster around & behind pipes neatly is next to impossible. Resist the temptation to remove the plaster. Lime plaster is alkaline, whilst mould prefers a slightly acidic environment to thrive - A dilute bleach solution will get rid of most of the mould.Ventilation and air circulation (with a bit of heat) will stop most of it from coming back.
On the subject of pipes, it would be a good idea to remove the verdigris from the copper pipes and give them a wipe down with a bicarbonate of soda solution. If left, you could find pinhole leaks developing. Also worth wrapping insulation around any cold water pipes to reduce condensation forming on them.

 

[CliffordPope]

There is an old 2 meter extension to it.

metre
There are no meters visible in your photographs.

 

[eon]

The plaster with the pinkish hue looks like gypsum. While the greyish white plaster behind that looks like lime. Instead of water you can test for lime with white vinegar. The lime will fizz almost like aspirin while the gypsum might bubble a little bit. If the builders who did the extension put plasterboard over lime on the ceiling (we had the same issue in our kitchen), I think its fairly safe to say they didn't use lime elsewhere.

What condition is the outside wall in? Is it rendered in cement?