Hi Guys,
I just bought a small 2 bed house that has been vacant for about a year.
It's in fairly poor state though some renovation has been done.
However, the stopcock for the cold water tap in the kitchen was fully open and dripping when I got the property. It's probably been like that for years. It's ok now.
So the main building is the lounge and upstairs bedrooms, with foundations and joists and a wooden floor. The kitchen is built on the back of the lounge and has a concrete floor.
The joist in the lounge closest to the kitchen was completely rotted, and the brickwork is damp, with a buildup of damp material (probs years of dust etc) between the wall and the joist.
However, the mortar on the long side of the lounge wall, leading to the kitchen, is really damp, for pretty much all the length of the wall. Under the floor the top bit of earth is really damp, however, digging down a bit it seems to dry out a lot in comparison.
There is an injected DPC above the damp and the walls above seem fine, although there are signs of previous rising damp in the centre of the long lounge wall.
There is also a smell of mildew in the lounge.
Could the leak in the kitchen have spread damp all this way along the mortar?
As it's below the DPC is there anything to worry about?
Is the very damp earth under the floor anything to concern myself about? Should I clean it out by taking the top layer off? The floorboards are easy to take up...
Thanks for reading.