Just after some advice from anyone who lives in an old house and understands them!

We are just looking to complete on an old farm house. It’s mid 1700, stone with rubble infill walls etc. We had a full survey done and it, unsurprisingly, through up a number of things. Things like the roof purlins don’t meet current building regs etc, which is to be expected really. I have spoken to a friend who is a structural engineer and he says with old roofs like that, if they’re not leaking then leave them.

Now the other thing that is coming up is damp. It seems to think there are a few damp patches in various areas. Now I know all old houses suffer with damp to an extent, and that injection damp proofing is virtually worthless on a stone and rubble house like this. Is it just a case of living with it and managing it. Making sure that gutters etc are in good knick and the levels outside are lower. Making sure that it’s heated and ventilated to reduce the impact? Any other things? I have ready that using more breathable paints internally is good (I.e non vinyl).

Any tips would be great before we commit!

Thanks

Positive pressure ventilation. I have a nuaire drimaster and its transformed my 1880’s house. There is a long thread about them on here a few years back.

I live in what sounds a very similar house, in an exposed position in the western Dales. For several years we stressed over ‘damp’ – on bad days we get a steady trickle of water into the house in some places; certain rooms always have large damp patches on them in winter etc. In the early days we had a small stream running through the kitchen. We took the sort of steps you’ve referred to above and that sorted the worst problems out and we had builders in to repoint stonework and the like. If I had my time again I’d have done more to return the building to its original state with lime mortar however we didn’t go down that route.

In the end we realised that this is just a fact of life in many of these houses and you will just become rather blase about it. Talking to other householders in our Dale and many have similar if not worse problems to deal with. So… don’t stress and enjoy your new house for what it is!

I live in a stone house in west Wales. Lime is your friend. If you want to discuss it email me (in profile) and I’ll return my phone number and I’ll tell you about what we’ve done.
Rich.

https://www.spab.org.uk/publications/old-house-handbook/

First call should probably be checking the gutters and pointing (DIY lime mortaring is easy enough if you have the time and inclination). Have made/are making a huge difference in our similarly old and leaky yorkshire house. Blocked/misaligned gutters can be an impressively easy and effective fix IME, especially if they’ve been neglected for some time. Ours had trees growing in them…

Any “damp patch” per se probably has a specific cause that can be fixed, general condensation and humidity needs ventilation, porous paint should help too.

We have however also just splashed out on a dehumidifier for the bit at the back of the lower level that’s built into the hillside. But that’s not leaking, just a bit clammy and unheated with little air circulation.

Apart from what others have said, drainage is it in good condition? moving water away from the house is soooo important

Having experienced the miraculous improvement that dry-lining gives a cold extension room, I would dry-line the outside walls of an old house before moving in, take down the ceilings and sort the electrics then replace with a good layer of Kingspan built in rather than the awful rockwool we have now. This would just be part of my budget. It would enable me to sort all the electrics and start with fresh un-decorated rooms.

However this might not be possible in all houses so my second line of defence would be good ventilation in the form of a working stove and good kitchen extraction and clothes drying arrangements and possibly a dehumidifier or positive ventilation. Roof and gutters in good condition, pointing sorted and drainage away from the foundations. I’ve stayed in a damp old house on Orkney and it was awful; none of the doors would shut and everything smelled damp all the time.

Is it just a case of living with it and managing it.

If you don’t want to go to the level of structural alterations, then probably this.

Keep the place ventilated and heated. Most older houses were really meant to have slight constant airflow through them to manage damp. Yes, your heating bill is larger, but no, things like carpets and wallpaper or paint don’t get damaged by water and mould, plus you avoid the health downsides of fungal spores floating around.

Our place is partly brick straight on dirt – the front rooms are notably far far nicer place to be throughout autumn/winter/spring if we simply run the heating on more frequently. Or even better, keep the stove going, lots of heat right by the cold wall and it keeps air moving.

edit: second what everyone else has said about keeping the guttering / pointing / exterior paint and whatnot in good condition. It all helps.

moving water away from the house is soooo important

This – once roof and walls are weather proofed as best they can.

We used some simple French drains and soakaways at end of garden on a house in Sheffield, to great effect.

Thanks all for the comments, some really interesting comments and points raised. It really does appear you just have to look at it in a different way to a new property.

Some really good points raised in terms of pointing of external walls etc.

Fortunately it has 2 wood burning stoves, an open fire and an aga so that should hopefully help to regulate the damp. Will have a look into dehumidifier too if that’s required.

Fortunately it has 2 wood burning stoves, an open fire and an aga

Is the aga hooked up to CH?

i was thinking of starting a new thread on this but may as well keep em all together.

Getting damp in a 1930s house. mrs dried clothes downstairs and we got damn. moved clothes upstairs and damp followed. stopped that and still the rear bedroom wall is permanently damn in a morning. So fixed the roof and guttering which we thought it could be and ive had a dehumidifier on for the last month (although she keeps switching it off because it makes a noise) but its not getting much better.

So anything else to try? windows open, i cant have the heating on (new baby apparently ill cook it)

wallpaper is literally falling off th walls now. Horrible black mold (any tips bar ronseal?) and i just wan to clear it all up.

+1 for the positive pressure ventilation. Cost around a grand.
Missus works in housing and had it recommended from knowledgeable building inspection type.
Black mould gone and smell virtually eliminated.
In mean time open windows etc more.

+ a fraction of the running cost of a dehumidifier.

Andy – get one of them timers for the dehumidifier. Run it next to the washing.

Holmesey does your positive pressure system have a heat exchanger, or are you throwing away warm air in winter?

i cant have the heating on (new baby apparently ill cook it)

Point out just how fantastically bad fungal spores are for the baby’s lungs. Your baby can cope with a bit more heat, especially if you remove one of the several million layers of romper suits and babygrows. *

* just my own experience here.

In Short –

Try and stop the damp/water getting in – ckeck guttering, pointing, drainage, damp courses, etc.

Ventilation should be next on the list – either positive pressure or at least controlled/managed in every room.

Insulation – target exterior walls.

We’ve got a dehumidifier – it only gets used in winter, and then only really to speed up drying of washing, but it does make the whole house feel drier.

I’ve learned that old houses such as this don’t like to be sealed up by modern building materials, and modern windows and doors.

Original plaster would have been lime or similar and original finishes would not have been vinyl based paints. This would have allowed moisture to escape from the walls naturally, this moisture would have been vented out by ill fitting doors, windows and roofs. It worked.

Over the years people have forced modern (cheaper) building materials on old houses, locking in moisture and causing damp. Modern winows and doors and double glazing have stopped the natural airflow too.

Live with it. Ventilate, heat and as you do home improvments be sympathetic to the house by using traditional materials.

An AGA, they brill if you’ve an old place, just learn how to properly cook on it – we did a 1/2 day course.

Ours is oil fired and never off, old mill in Scotland, heats the water too – also perfect for drying 5:10’s 🙂

Oil fired Aga in the kitchen which will be on all the time but doesn’t do hot water. Separate boiler for doing hot water and central heating. Thinking I might need to up the amount I’m setting aside for oil. Currently got about £150/month in the budget. Have a good supply of cheap timber so hoping to supplement significantly with that over the winter months.

Yeah Aga great for cooking, we are in with the in laws at the moment who have one so becoming well practiced!

“The Survey”… what an excuse to print money. I do wish mortgage companies would learn that they are useless. “Purlins undersized to current B Regs”… Is the guy serious?? Its laughable. He probably missed anything serious while writing ‘damp’ and ‘undersized purlins’ and not lifting a carpet. Grrrrr. OK rant over. I think the OP has listed the obvious stuff. If damp is on an internal wall then check poss leaking water/heating pipes or roof flashings. Also if floors are suspended timber, check for signs of dry rot near the damp patches.

Oil is cheap at the moment, we go though 3000 litres per year…

What size property is that for?

Yes the Aga warms the whole house and sucks massive volumes of air up the flue, meaning the atmosphere is always fresh and warm. But still, even in our modern, well insulated house the attic often feels damp as moisture fromn showers and drying clothes finds its way up there.

Only 3 bed, but has a 2 1/2 storey living room plus no c/h, just a mega wood stove and the house is all open to plan.

Sent 4 years now getting it less drafty, new front door recently in 🙂

Takes a while to get the Aga to the right heat, but t just keep turning it down.

We are in the process of buying a place that in part dates back to 1649.

When we commissioned a building survey it came back with reports of some damp but we have decided to go ahead and see what happens. We almost got a company in to do some work but decided against it after reading this.

http://www.heritage-house.org/managing-damp-in-old-buildings.html

hunterst

We knew the build date on our house, and never bothered with a survey.

They’d have probably told us about a hundred things that nobody gave a shite about in 1800. The house is still there. It seems unlikely to fall over any time soon.

Our worst “old” problem was the staircase being rotten – because some **** had closed off the underside of the wooden stairs with modern plasterboard, thus sealing in all the damp, which had originally made its way in via the very bottom of the staircase, which rested on a couple of big clay tiles plonked straight down on the dirt. Which some other **** had surrounded by modern impermeable concrete, thus guaranteeing that any moisture in the soil had precisely one place it could come out of. Nice.

People often mix up condensation, leaks, penetrating damp and rising damp. They are different with many different causes. A building can suffer from all these problems simultaneously even in the same stretch of wall!

Older buildings are more susceptible to moisture problems because they are usually poorly insulated and ventilated, have no DPC, no DPM, damaged DPC, bridged DPC. Original passive ventilation features have been blocked due to modern usage/tampering. Cold bridges due to solid walls and older construction techniques.

Your average turn of the century 2 up 2 down (especially with solid walls), you really have to be aware of ventilating when doing wet things like drying washing internally, showering, multiple occupancy in small spaces etc. Back in time housewives used to “air the house”. In combination with the stack effect of open fire places, lack of insulation and draughty single glazed windows, condensation problems were not as prevalent now we have trapped air internally to prevent heat losses.

I would second the positive input ventilation mentioned as part of the solution.

I thought it might be snake oil based, but a friend of mine has put a few in his rented houses with such good results he has put one in his own house.

In terms of heat loss as queried above my understanding is that there can be a heat gain for Spring / summer as the air in the roof space often heats up as a result of black roofing / slates etc. then this heat is blown into the house.

This effect can be optimised by the additoin of a control box that has a low setting for moisture prevention, but turns up the fan when the air in the roof space is 1 degree warmer than the rest of the house.

The only downside I have seen personally is that in colder weather there is a noticeable coldness to the air being circulated.

They are an easy DIY fit and can be purchased for around £300

alibongo001 – Yah Solar Gain affects the whole building not just the loft! It’s the heat differential between spaces/the outside and control thereof that matter.

Drying clothes inside, would it not be better to use an externally vented tumble dryer?
We have a gas one which is brilliant. Used to dry clothes inside and did have damp, but no longer.
EDIT. I appreciate many of the older homes may not have mains gas, though…

Hi Chester!
I might be wrong but the solar gain thing does affect the whole house / roofspace, but the PIV system help move the warm air into the house which makes more of it, rather than having a hot roofspace and a relatively cold house space.

Not studied it in any depth, but seems like a good idea and the air blown in from the ceiling on a warm morning is significantly warmer than the air in the house

As said above Drimaster gets great reviews. We have had one fitted not long ago (cant vouch for it yet I’ll tell you next winter!). Less than £400 fitted and much cheaper to run than a dehumidifier.

Another couple here just about to complete on an old (1800’s) cottage. Damp spotted on the gable end and a small patch on the side wall. Pointing needs doing on both, once the brickwork is as good as it can be then we’ll live with any that’s left.

The one interesting thing is (and it hasn’t been mentioned yet) is there is a bit of damp showing on an internal chimney breast. It had an open fire originally, now a log burner. The chimney stack on the roof may need pointing, but the other thing that we need to check (and others may need to) is does it have an insulated flu. If not, but it is sealed at the top then it could be condensation building up when the fire is lit (happened in my parents place when I was younger). Appropriate capping/venting may need to be fitted.

Even with all the issues that are inherent in an old house, I can’t wait to move 🙂