Frostyuk
Member
- Messages
- 1
- Location
- Shropshire
Hi all hoping for some guidance and suggestions about how to proceed, ive read a lot of the threads and gradually learning ....
we moved into our current property last year; the (small) core of the house is 18th century sandstone with extensions either end one from the 1960s and the other from the 1970s. The house is fully cement rendered and painted with modern masonry paint. The render is to the ground on the 1960s end and the core sandstone building, its largely solid with a few hairline cracks and one section on the sandstone north wall is blown and hollow when knocked. Inside the sandstone part of hte house has modern plaster and paint, the plaster is blown internally on both north and south downstairs walls and the upstairs north wall. the skirting board on the south wall well you can push your fingers into it so definately damp. Walking upstairs is like walking into a different climate, its so cold, along the north wall is corridor that has no direct heating and during the recent cold weather (and last winter tbh) condensation along the bottom two or three feet of plaster on the north wall. Outside the south wall is a paving slab patio below the internal floor level, on the north side its a grass verge below floor level. I bought a thermal camera to try and see if there was a specific area that was bad as well as the checking the insulation in the roof which the upstairs rooms do go up into. (the main loft we got insulated as soon as we moved in as there was next to nothing in there). the roof part looks ok relatively but the thermal camera told me the coldest parts of the internal wall was just over 8degC and the outside warmest parts on the north wall were over 6degC ignoring where the flue comes out from the gas boiler, the 60s and 70s extension outside temp was typcially around 2.5deg C for comparison on the north, outside temp was around 0deg C at the time. Im assuming the newer extensions are cavity wall with no CWI and no idea how the join between the parts of the house have been formed and whether the internal and external parts of the avity wall are being bridged by the sandstone older walls.
Obviously i have quite an (unexpected) problem to deal with, im thinking that my first task has to be removing the internal plaster from the sandstone walls to give them a chance to breath and probably dry out, is this something i can do in the winter months? im expecting it to take quite some time to dry out even with dehumidifiers running all day. Eventually expecting to have a lime plaster on the inside rather than full insulation as there isnt much space to play with. The external render loose parts i dont want to touch this time of year but its on the list for next year and praying for another hot dry one. As the sandstone section of the house is in the middle between the two modern extensions can i just(!) try and remove the cement render from the standstone part of the house and re-render it in lime based render or am i likely to get into more issues. Naturally i have no idea of the state o the sandstone underneath so no idea what im letting myself in for.
Many thanks in advance for any help or guidance on the best way to proceed in this scenario.
we moved into our current property last year; the (small) core of the house is 18th century sandstone with extensions either end one from the 1960s and the other from the 1970s. The house is fully cement rendered and painted with modern masonry paint. The render is to the ground on the 1960s end and the core sandstone building, its largely solid with a few hairline cracks and one section on the sandstone north wall is blown and hollow when knocked. Inside the sandstone part of hte house has modern plaster and paint, the plaster is blown internally on both north and south downstairs walls and the upstairs north wall. the skirting board on the south wall well you can push your fingers into it so definately damp. Walking upstairs is like walking into a different climate, its so cold, along the north wall is corridor that has no direct heating and during the recent cold weather (and last winter tbh) condensation along the bottom two or three feet of plaster on the north wall. Outside the south wall is a paving slab patio below the internal floor level, on the north side its a grass verge below floor level. I bought a thermal camera to try and see if there was a specific area that was bad as well as the checking the insulation in the roof which the upstairs rooms do go up into. (the main loft we got insulated as soon as we moved in as there was next to nothing in there). the roof part looks ok relatively but the thermal camera told me the coldest parts of the internal wall was just over 8degC and the outside warmest parts on the north wall were over 6degC ignoring where the flue comes out from the gas boiler, the 60s and 70s extension outside temp was typcially around 2.5deg C for comparison on the north, outside temp was around 0deg C at the time. Im assuming the newer extensions are cavity wall with no CWI and no idea how the join between the parts of the house have been formed and whether the internal and external parts of the avity wall are being bridged by the sandstone older walls.
Obviously i have quite an (unexpected) problem to deal with, im thinking that my first task has to be removing the internal plaster from the sandstone walls to give them a chance to breath and probably dry out, is this something i can do in the winter months? im expecting it to take quite some time to dry out even with dehumidifiers running all day. Eventually expecting to have a lime plaster on the inside rather than full insulation as there isnt much space to play with. The external render loose parts i dont want to touch this time of year but its on the list for next year and praying for another hot dry one. As the sandstone section of the house is in the middle between the two modern extensions can i just(!) try and remove the cement render from the standstone part of the house and re-render it in lime based render or am i likely to get into more issues. Naturally i have no idea of the state o the sandstone underneath so no idea what im letting myself in for.
Many thanks in advance for any help or guidance on the best way to proceed in this scenario.
