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Hi all,
Been having something of 'mare since moving in a recently bought 50/60s bungalow. Previous lot hung a big picture on the chimney breast, and now I know why! Been around the houses on this and any thoughts would be great:
1- When stripping back walls, pre-decorating, we revealed big dark patches on the plaster in a couple of areas on chimney breast.
2- The breast was opened up to install a wood burner and the hope was not having trapped air/moisture may help - but of course it didn't.
3- We ripped out a big patch of plaster, treated bricks with salt neutraliser and redid the plaster with damp proof additive. No joy.
4- Couldn't afford to delay plaster skim, had to go ahead. The below shows the areas taking longest to dry, which eventually dried and then un-dried after rain. The stuff in the centre isn't as clear as it gets after rain, but you can see the areas we had the plaster hacked out and replaced. Note the area on the ceiling, which correlates to the area the chimney stack 'juts out' above.
Loft:
4- Further investigations in the loft ... long story short... we found that when it rains the bricks in the chimney stack (or rather, I assume, mortar?), 'seeped' moisture. The ceiling board is very high on a damp-meter as are all the bricks that are nearest the 'jut' in the chimney stack.
At this stage it seemed there must be some penetrative moisture getting in rather than it just being condensation and salts etc.
5- We had the pointing above roof level checked and given the thumps up, a few broken tiles replaced and flashing reattached. None of this helped the situation with the plaster down below.
The below is a picture of the ceiling board from above - i.e. in the loft. Gross, but mouse poo aside (another issue I'm dealing with) you can see the damp board, and wooden beams which are damp (wetter at the top than the bottoms)...
...OK... so any thoughts?!
I'm thinking of the next step to be repointing the loft part of the chimney stack. It's clearly a problem, and it seems too much of a co-incidence that this is the area below the jut in the stack to not be linked.
However... there's still moisture getting down to it inside the chimney it seems (I've observed a few times during rain and there's been no internal leaking, though some signs that may have occurred in the past.)
Porous bricks all the way up and down? Anything to be done? ...I've spent too long sat staring at it, losing my marbles now.
Cheers
Patrick
Been having something of 'mare since moving in a recently bought 50/60s bungalow. Previous lot hung a big picture on the chimney breast, and now I know why! Been around the houses on this and any thoughts would be great:
1- When stripping back walls, pre-decorating, we revealed big dark patches on the plaster in a couple of areas on chimney breast.
2- The breast was opened up to install a wood burner and the hope was not having trapped air/moisture may help - but of course it didn't.
3- We ripped out a big patch of plaster, treated bricks with salt neutraliser and redid the plaster with damp proof additive. No joy.
4- Couldn't afford to delay plaster skim, had to go ahead. The below shows the areas taking longest to dry, which eventually dried and then un-dried after rain. The stuff in the centre isn't as clear as it gets after rain, but you can see the areas we had the plaster hacked out and replaced. Note the area on the ceiling, which correlates to the area the chimney stack 'juts out' above.
Loft:
4- Further investigations in the loft ... long story short... we found that when it rains the bricks in the chimney stack (or rather, I assume, mortar?), 'seeped' moisture. The ceiling board is very high on a damp-meter as are all the bricks that are nearest the 'jut' in the chimney stack.
At this stage it seemed there must be some penetrative moisture getting in rather than it just being condensation and salts etc.
5- We had the pointing above roof level checked and given the thumps up, a few broken tiles replaced and flashing reattached. None of this helped the situation with the plaster down below.
The below is a picture of the ceiling board from above - i.e. in the loft. Gross, but mouse poo aside (another issue I'm dealing with) you can see the damp board, and wooden beams which are damp (wetter at the top than the bottoms)...
...OK... so any thoughts?!
I'm thinking of the next step to be repointing the loft part of the chimney stack. It's clearly a problem, and it seems too much of a co-incidence that this is the area below the jut in the stack to not be linked.
However... there's still moisture getting down to it inside the chimney it seems (I've observed a few times during rain and there's been no internal leaking, though some signs that may have occurred in the past.)
Porous bricks all the way up and down? Anything to be done? ...I've spent too long sat staring at it, losing my marbles now.
Cheers
Patrick
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