Damp cellar solutions

[Saeed]

The cellar of my old Victorian house is very damp.

I won't get round to any sort of tanking for a good while yet, so I am thinking about cheap stop gap solutions to tide us over and make it a more pleasant experience when having to go in the cellar to fetch some tools.

I am thinking my two main prongs of attack should be ventilation and heating.

I have the windows open, so it is nice and breezy down there, though I did fix some mesh over the windows to prevent a vermin invasion.

I dont want to do any plumbing for radiators/gas. What options are there for cheap effective heating, just enough to get the damp shifted, or am I very much mistaken in seeing this as a remedy.

Saeed

It should be obvious what to leave out from the address to email me.

ng_786

[Ian Stirling]

Tanking doesn't have to be very expensive. Covering the walls in thin polythene dust-sheets will stop the water evaporating into the room. I'd personally go with something like making a very simple frame to hold the dustsheets a couple of inches off the wall, and a fan to blow air from the room through this space out a vent.

Just covering the walls and doing nothing else may be enough, if it's just damp, and not water seeping in.

[Anna Kettle]

I don't think thats true though

Trouble is that by doing this you are keeping the bricks wet whereas at the moment they evaporate moisture into the room. Eventually the bricks will fail and either the house will be knocked down or it will have to be partly rebuilt - both expensive options

But you might decide that by the time this happens you will be long gone and meanwhile you can get more house room in which case ignore me

I would just limewash the walls

Anna ~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|

01359 230642

[dp]

This is one situation where a dehumidifier is useful. Put on a low setting, the water will need emptying every 2 or 3 days, but it will slowly dry out the cellar.

_________

[N. Thornton]

ventilation yes, heating is a pricey way of only partially doing it.

ventilation remove non-porous paints from bricwork, eg gloss and emulsion. dehumidifier

dont put membranes on walls, or youll get black mould

NT

[Ian Stirling]

What would this do? I thought limewash was basically just a porous white 'paint'.

Is this not so?

[Pete C]

Really? The Victorians built their underground reservoirs with brick...

cheers, Pete.

[Jan Wysocki]

That would be impervious engineering brick - a bit expensive for general housebuilding:)

[Pete C]

Oops, I stand corrected:

[Anna Kettle]

It is indeed, so it makes the room look bright and clean without trapping moisture

Anna

~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|

01359 230642

[Saeed]

In message , Anna Kettle writes

What about mould - would limewash resist it ?

Saeed Rana

ng_786

[Anna Kettle]

Yes its quite a strong alkali which moulds don't like

Anna

~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|

01359 230642

[Ian Stirling]

I think it does. As the original concern was to stop things going mouldy, it's only going to mean that you can see the mould easier :)

A collection of rawl-plugs, some string, to make a framework 5cm off the walls and ceiling, combined with a 1cm gap at the base, and a fan to suck air through this and blow it out a window would be my solution.

30-40 quid or so, and a few hours work.

The floor will probably need painting with some sort of vapour barrier too.

A large enough dehumidifier will work, but will be expensive to run over the long term. Ventilation will help a bit.

[stuart noble]

And yet an acid ph is used to stop mould developing in water.....

[Ian Stirling]

stuart noble

All living stuff will only live in a range of PH. Both low and high will stop it thriving.

[raden]

In message , stuart noble

Anything outside the narrow range around 7, acid or alkali would make life extremely uncomfortable for most moulds