Rough coat render and condensation advice

5 years ago

Our 1700 house has what I think is rough coat render. It's cracked in places, where new render has been added to the extension (12 years old) and in some places it sounds hollow underneath, so we suspect it's no longer adhering to the wall.

We were considering just painting the walls to tidy them up as they need a good refresh. However maybe re-rendering is the wall to go. Should we have all of the render removed? Or could we go straight over the top of the existing? We don't want to make the condensation worse. We've had mixed advice from professionals. We want a smooth render.

We have condensation on the walls on older part of the house (non cavity walls). Which we need sorted. The walls are very cold. Could the cracked render be causing this issue?

Featured Answer

Jonathan

5 years ago

You need a builder with experience of older buildings to tell you what sort of render you need. Some older building need to breathe and modern render doesn’t always allow that.

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Comments (7)

Coldwater
Original Author
5 years ago
Thank you for that advice. Hard to know where to start looking for the right type of people!
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obobble
5 years ago
If you look at the websites of magazines like Period Living and Traditional Homes which are aimed at owners of older properties they have articles on relevant topics and ads from firms specialising in older buildings.
Coldwater
Original Author
5 years ago
It turns out that we need to remove the render and either replace with lime render or repair the bricks underneath. Trouble is, we have an extension which wasn't built by us. Any ideas how we would know if it's brick or blocks under that part of the render? The footing is exposed and is brick. Would this mean it's brick all the way up?

Interested to know how we could blend the old building with the new. Can you put lime render on blocks?

Also have been told by a damp specialist that we should pull up the concrete floor and replace with a suspended wood floor and air bricks. This would allow for ventilation and help prevent damp travelling up the walls. Would rendering in correct render allow for the walls to breathe enough? Pulling up the floor seems very extreme! He said the concrete floor is likely to have damp as it can't breathe - is this likely to be true? I thought damp under the floor would be caused by leaking pipes etc. Although I get what the guy is saying about a suspended floor as that's how the building was built, I'm not sure how much I trust his conclusion! He didn't even look at the damp before saying to remove the floors...just how the building was constructed.

So confused what to do! Any advice would be appreciated. My head hurts from trying to decide on the best cause of action!
Angie
5 years ago
If you're not confident then get a second opinion. No point spending money on a solution you don't trust.
obobble
5 years ago
If the walls need to breathe you might well need to use breathable lime plaster on the inside too for best results. Floor might be damp if does not have a dpc layer but presumably you could find that out via an exploratory hole? One of my neighbours converted a barn and had bricks at the base of the wall chopped out and replaced with engineering bricks to form a dpc. Don't know if that is an option? Definitely get a second opinion.
obobble
5 years ago
Have a look at Heritage-house.org they have some very good pointers.

Rough coat render and condensation advice

Jonathan

Comments (7)

Coldwater
Original Author

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Rough coat render and condensation advice

Jonathan

Comments (7)

ColdwaterOriginal Author

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obobble

ColdwaterOriginal Author

Angie

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Coldwater
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