I had my suspicions about a place I worked for 6 months.

Over my time working there I lost feeling in my hands, feet and then my arms and legs. Went through a full barrage of tests and feared the worst as the tests got more and more serious. Nerve conduction tests showed real problems with my nerves in most areas.

My liver test results were at levels the docs hadn’t seen before – it looked like I was drinking 5-10 bottles of spirits a day.

I left that job, and everything came back to normal in 2 months. I later found out the building had been badly flooded a while before I started and some later blood tests showed a bacterial infection had caused all my problems.

http://www.lung.org/about-us/media/top-stories/cold-weather-your-lungs.html?referrer=https://www.google.co.uk/

Hi OP,

Not received an email from you so I’ll drop you a note now. Let me know if you don’t receive it?

Hi John, thanks for the mail, I had tried to send a mail to the same email last night, so let me know if you don’t get anything from me…could easily be finger trouble due to tiredness.

And some good news on my youngest he is coming home shortly, looks like they were keeping him in for 48 hours. It is pneumonia so we have to keep a careful eye on him. Smiles this morning so he is feeling better, cough and death rattle are still there. We feel terrible we ignored the signs and didnt get him to the docs sooner.

Sounds as if a dehumidifier, air purifier and possibly a supplemental fan (to help circulate air and get more passed through other units) could help.

I got a pretty cheap one but it was obvious as soon as I put it to the walls that there was damp. Something like this should give you a good idea.

Those prong meters aren’t designed for measuring damp in old houses – they’re for use on wood. They’ll almost certainly give a false positive reading (they’re much loved by folk selling damp proof courses).

A Victorian house is designed to “breathe” as someone else suggested. Then 21st Century Man comes along and hermetically seals it with modern plaster, paints, double-glazing, then wonders why everything is wet through all of a sudden.

Read this.

https://www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/managing-damp-in-old-buildings.html

Great news that the young one can come home. Hopefully you’ll get to the bottom of the house issues soon

well damp meter turned up. my novice if the number is big it’s bad shows full bar against a couple of suspect patched in the downstairs loo. all I can think is there is a old pipe in the wall as I’ve disabled the toilet

plus the chimney in the backroom (lower part removed downstairs at some stage) shows a big number round the ceiling, possibly not capped correctly.

hopefully Marin will be able to give a professional opinion later in the week.

starting to think buying a doeruper was not a great idea with young ones

“40-70% but anything above 60% can act by causing condensation points”

quick run around with the cheap humidity tester shows 57-61%, so not that bad really. I’m starting to think the smell / possible related health issues maybe from water ingress rather than a condensation issue.

Big thank you to John (marin) who went out of his way to pop round today. confirmed I’ve got a few things that are very likely to be leading to damp and need a closer look / fixing.

I might also try out one of those pumps subject to swmbo, and how much of my rapidly diminishing budget is left!

Has the hospital told you what caused the pneumonia?

I doesn’t help the immediate issue but if you had a full structural survey surely that should have highlighted damp! Maybe grounds for a claim against the surveyor/company.

The pneumonia was viral, not bacterial, caused by adenovirus (sp?) so this would not be related to damp. Doesn’t mean the other things (like my headaches) are not related, but there doesn’t seem to be evidence of a really bad infestation.

The areas of damp are the top of a chimney/ceiling in the back room (ground floor stack removed) and in a downstairs loo likely a plumbing leak. The survey says something along the lines of ‘no damp was found by testing likely areas’. Tbh the downstairs loo looks like it might have been like this for some time (its the original 30’s lead pipework) and probably should have been picked up. Going to be a massive pita to sort as it needs the laminate up in the kitchen, meaning the island probably needs to be removed as well to get to the pipework that leads to that space

So how would one start a conversation about whether this should have been identified of the structural survey or not?