Making our Victorian terraced basement/garden flat breathable (walls and floor)

[EmmBee]

Hi all, first time poster (and home buyer!) and so thankful for this forum. I’ve read up what I can find on damp in basement/garden level flats and feel much more knowledgeable thanks to this group, but hope to get some advice for our situation!

We are newbies, so I appreciate in advance any extra explanation in your responses

Background:

• Our flat: 1880s tenement basement/garden Edinburgh flat with large patio and garden (no rising ground around flat); damp coursing clearly done before previous owner (pre-1980s with no documentation); independent drain survey came back clear and no water issues on outside with good drainage when it rains; original wood floor in half the flat which looks good but appears to be cement in living room, closet, and tiled hall

Work completed over last 2-3 weeks:
1. Walls:

• After finding rising dampness in lower wallpaper in various parts of the flat (front entrance way and living room) and in living room and box room floor, we’ve now removed (many many layers of) wallpaper; there is still some immovable old varnished brown paper and other inconsistencies

2. Flooring:

• we’ve removed carpet, underlay, linoleum and have stopped at wood floor board in box room (dry, solid and good condition in my opinion) and red cement(?) in living room and hall closet (unclear what might be under this and if wood flooring is still below). This surface shows cracks, some very slippery areas, various decolorisation, and wood skirting in one area turned to mush (now removed); some areas of floor are hard and others are super soft almost like clay that can be scraped away at

Questions: walls

• would you suggest a patch work approach or plaster the entire wall to have an even surface for design? (We are in touch with a plasterer who specialises in lime plaster and can do patch work where it’s crumbling or where it needs to be taken back to the stone) but I’m not sure how to then prep for paint if it’s patch work
• We intend to use clay based breathable paints rather than wallpaper- any recommended brands or tips to help our thinking with our approach would be appreciated!

Questions: floor

• Would you recommend getting an inspection under the cement? (Assuming ground water has no where to go, tiled hall and cement in this room could result in ground water getting stuck and rising up where it can, however seeing the state of the floor has me worried there could be additional pipes under there with issues beneath) - thoughts?
• Would you recommend getting this cement (or whatever the red stuff is) removed and wood floor put in? Any tips to make it functional and breathable for a ground floor flat?
• We were advised to get vents put in, is this common?

Any other thoughts and suggested next steps re: cleaning, drying, or things to check would be appreciated

Damp wallpaper in hall

Removal of wallpaper in closet and brown varnished paper remaining


Closet red cement, uneven and gross


Living room floor “cement” or red surface on top of other flooring beneath


Box room wood floor

 

[LadyArowana]

We used Rose of Jericho paint in the place it needed to be breathable. I looked at Edward Bulmer too. Choice was made for aesthetic reasons not due to a technical judgement. You can mix your own, a previous forum member did that, but consistency can be an issue with pigments.

 

[EmmBee]

Thanks @LadyArowana, will check those brands out. Do you mind sharing how you prepped the wall? (i.e. sanded down? primers? multiple layers of breathable paint?) As you can see in some of the pictures we have an uneven surface to work with

 

[jamest]

Years ago I lived in an Edinburgh tenement flat, but top floor . . . so I had no need to worry about rising damp. Falling damp was more of an issue.

Are your floors suspended? They would have been originally. If they are, then you need to ensure adequate ventilation of the void under the boards, there should be airbricks on the outside walls below the floor level. You should definitely check out what's under that concrete. If it's solid right the way to the ground, then it might be an idea to remove it and reinstate the suspended floor (assuming that's how the rest of it is).

I sometimes get told off for saying this, but Farrow & Ball estate emulsion is breathable, provided that you use it without their recommended primer. They quote an SD value (a measure of vapour permeability) of 0.01 for a single coat, which is better than most clay paints (which tend to be around 0.03). The reason I mention this (and used it myself) is that F&B's range of colours is extensive with many appealing options, something you don't tend to get with clay paints - so if you like something F&B make, no reason not to use it.

 

[LadyArowana]

I'm not sure how the walls were prepared, some plaster was removed and replaced with breathable and we were doing quite extensive works in the area, rebuilding part of an original kitchen stone "fireplace" which had been badly damaged by the boiler flues and pipes, and new units on internal walls. I do know we used the caesin distemper version which is slightly more resistant to being rubbed away if you brush against it. The supposed downside of that is that it has a shelf life and goes "off" although I've done odd bits with the leftovers ages after. Probably wouldn't be great to think of painting a nice wall with the leftovers, fine for a blob in an inconsequential place. Tradies weren't huge fans of it because of how it went on, I think that's just the nature of those types of paint though. I looked at F&B but it seemed £££ although of course you get the cachet of telling people "it's hippopotamus toenail by Farrow and Ball" if they ask for the colour. Our RoJ was "linen" and basically magnolia

 

[Raymond]

Yes remove all the vapour sealant materials, allow the subsurfaces to dry with a good cross ventilation system

 

[EmmBee]

Yes remove all the vapour sealant materials, allow the subsurfaces to dry with a good cross ventilation system

Thanks Raymond. I feel like we’ve gone round the houses with the flooring (now going back to the damp and timber guys to remove the cement as we don’t know who else could do this work- we’re handy but not that handy!)
The damp and timber guys initially suggested wall damp coursing but had no suggestion of looking at floors, so fingers crossed we can get someone in there to examine and get some vents put in

 

[EmmBee]

Update:
Our red cement/screed floor came back positive for asbestos and so we paid a company to come remove it. Underneath that, we have damaged flag stones! Not what we were expecting and now not sure where to go from here! We think the flagstones continue into the hall as well but any advice given the state of damage would be mich appreciated

As an update on walls, we have removed all wallpaper and it seems that dehumidifier and having the heating on has reduced the rising dampness massively. There is one wall that we want to look into and will likely cut a gap so it doesn’t touch the floor and possibly redo in lime plaster too

 

[Cubist]

Exposing that flagged floor will have made a big positive impact on the damp by creating a much larger area for moisture evaporation that would then be captured by the dehumidifier. If you plan to switch it off any time soon I'd keep an eye on the levels.