I have just moved into a new house and I have noticed now the weather is getting worst that there is damp coming through the walls close to the chinmey breast in both the ground floor and first floor rooms (about a foot wide strip on the plaster wall next to the chimney).
I have had a specialist around and he has given me a quote for the following work to fix the problem...
Renew lead flashing on East and North side of chimney and lift and relay displaced pantiles below chimney.
I have no experience with these types of problems so I was wondering does this sound like this could be the cause of the damp (both floors)? Could there be any other cause? And does £490 + VAT sound reasonable to complete the work described above?
The lead flashing and tiles may well be faulty and will cause problems, especially upstairs. Have you looked at the stack with binoculars? Is the brickwork accessible in the loft and is it damp?
However, it may not explain the damp downstairs very well. I had a damp problem with my house and my solutions might help you. Also birds were coming down the chimney which was not fun for us or them!
Problems were:
faulty concrete flaunching (?) around the base of the pots. My chimney sweeper did a good repair. However, if you need scaffolding it could well be costly.
Unused pots without cowls letting rain in - had 'elephants feet' put on them and ventilated them by putting ducts from the old fireplaces through a wall and up through a fitted wardrobe into the loft. I used a mixture of flat section ducts (about 100mm by 50) and 100mm drainpipe. This creates a slow current of air which keeps the chimney dry without getting the place draughty - Snowdonia gets howling gales in winter and didn't want them inside the house! A vent to outside would have done if it had been possible but even a vent into the room will fix it
An open pot still in use with a wood burning stove - I had a fancy metal cowl put on top to keep rain and birds out.
I still have a slight damp mark in one of the bedrooms where the plaster has been damp in the past. Such plaster still absorbs moisture from the air even when the damp problem is fixed. A sealant hasn't worked well so maybe I'll have to bite the bullet and replaster the patch next time I redecorate.
I had problem with damp on the chimney breast when I moved into my house. The surveyor thought it was the flashing on the chimney but it turned out to be because the chimneys had not been ventilated since the fireplaces had been blocked up 20 years earlier! Put in vents and the damp was gone 2 months later.
How did you come to the conclusion that vents was the way forward? Also, the specialist said that it as the damp is about a foot wide it was unlikely the culprit was the chimney breast.
I just decided to try the ventilation thing first. I didn't think any damp would get much worse in three months, so I figured it was worth a try. If there had been any water ingress I would have got straight on with the flashing etc.
Of the two opinions, your 'specialist's' and AL Reynold's, I'd go for the latter. Common sense tells you that a problem which involves water beating a flashing or whatever is going to have to go some to cause damp on the ground floor! If this were the case then the house would have been wet when you moved in, not just when the weather gets bad. Which leads us nicely on to the phrase ' the weather is getting worse'
What the weather is actually doing is getting colder and your chimney breasts over the years will have secreted salts into the plasterwork around them. This means that the walls adjacent to them have become hygroscopic. There will be chlorides, nitrates and very probably ammonium salts there too. At this time of the year the condensation problems which have been missing in the summer re-appear and I'd bet money this is what's happening to your walls.
Before you start to spend a lot of money rectifying a problem you probably haven't got, go and look in the loft space. If you can see signs of penetrating water, then ok, consider your 'specialists' remedy, if not then do as Al says.
Also, put a cowl on the chimneys, increase the ventilation in the affected rooms and try *not* to use your heating on an 'as required' basis. In other words, allow your heating to heat the fabric of the building. (That means keeping it on more I'm afraid)
If you have double glazing, make sure you use the trickle vent facilities, either that or leave windows open(security permitting) where possible.
Keep the bathroom door closed when you're in the bath and run cold water into it before you open the hot tap. Little things such as this help keep condensation at bay and if you do, you'll almost certainly get rid of your damp patches.
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