A soggy bloggy story

Well, I never got to write that extra post last week, so I'll have to try and catch up this week. However, for those of you who aren't into DIY or solving those types of problems, you might want to skip this one. Here's a pretty picture of Vereeniging seen through another beautiful barge to make up for it.

Vereeniging in the distance

So for the DIY enthusiasts, what's the soggy story? It's about a kitchen wall, you see. Once upon a time, when my crumbly cottage was a youngster, it had a front room and a back room each with its own fireplace. Later on, when it was older, one of its former residents decided to open up the wall between the two rooms and close up the fireplace and chimney in the back room.  All well and good. The cottage now had central heating, so why have more than one fireplace? 

That in itself was fine. Unfortunately, said resident knew not what he did because in sealing it, he set in motion a problem that has grown to ugly and mouldy proportions in the intervening years.

For a long time, I had no idea where the damp patches at the bottom of the kitchen wall were coming from. I thought it might be condensation as I usually kept a cupboard standing against it. Actually, I still don't really know the source of the problem but this last winter the weather has been so wet, the damp and mould have developed to unacceptable levels. After dismissing the condensation idea, I thought it was rising damp, but when yellow patches started showing high up on the wall, I started to believe it was probably water ingress through the old bricks. 

Some hours of research later, I bought some milky fluid that I sprayed on; it promised me it would prevent the type of ingress I feared. When this method didn't seem to improve things, I bought another product to paint on the wall – a type of cream that was supposed to seal the brickwork completely. That hasn't worked either.

However, after observing water dripping down the inside of the kitchen wall during one particularly violent storm, I wondered if rain was getting into the air vent for our extractor fan and seeping through a crack in the plaster. To address this possibility, Koos and I made a hood to cover the vent without closing it off. Once again, no change. 

Makeshift hood, which has surprisingly weathered
more than a few storms already

Then, I thought that maybe rain was also coming in through the lower air vent for the old, blocked off chimney, so I made another hood for that, not to mention digging a trench and installing a French drain. Anyway, to cut any further rambling short, none of it has made any difference, and following each storm, the kitchen wall has become increasingly damp and mouldy, with the problem principally sitting where the old chimney breast used to be. By this process of elimination, I was now beginning to feel quite certain the issue had something to do with blocking it up.

Hood over lower vent and French drain along
the length of the wall

So what could be next, you might ask? Well, I began a new attack from the inside last week. Taking off the now rotting plinth, I hacked off the plaster from the bottom of the wall to see what was behind it and found to my dismay that the fireplace flue had been filled with concrete. Now, I don't remember where I read it but apparently, you should never fill up an old chimney with concrete, especially in a cavity wall. It stops the wall 'breathing' and provides a nice 'bridge' for water ingress to pass from the outer skin to the inside wall. It also encourages condensation, which may be why there are other yellow patches on the rest of the wall. See what I mean about the unforeseeing previous owner?

So there we have it. Yesterday, when it was raining heavily, I could actually see water dripping off the concrete into the gap I'd created by removing the plaster. I now know what's happening, but... not how to fix it. Where the rain is coming through the wall, I haven't established, but I know it is and I know the concrete has to go. This will involve opening up the old fireplace and drilling out the offending filling, a job that will need care so as not to damage the outer brickwork. Oh joy.

I wanted to build a new interior wall with damp resistant plasterboard, but I think even that won't take kindly to being almost literally rained on. The incoming rainwater has to be stopped, so any suggestions from you, my courageous readers, would be welcome.

Anyone need convincing of the joys of owning an old house yet? 

That's all for this week allemaal. Wish me luck!