Damp in a Stone Cottage With Concrete or Vandex Render Information, help and solutions to many issues encountered when converting barns and older buildings

[devonlass]

Hi everyone - I am new to the forum. We have been renovating an old stone cottage, and the builders we used covered the house with vandex. All has been ok for a couple of years, however following the torrential rain, we have had some ingress of water above the windows (now filled).
Is this problem likely to get worse over time, as I have been told we should have used a breathable lime render (but this is time consuming and expensive to apply, which is maybe why our builder did not use it) I did email our builder, no reply ...
Is the only way round the problem to hack all the render off and re-do?
Many thanks

[welsh brickie]

if you have had no trouble for 2 years and then had water appear, found the source then stopped it, I don't see why you should have to re plaster,

[ruben93watson]

Give an intimation to the builder again and get the possible suggestion. A professional will be able to give you the right solution.

[Bauwer]

Hi everyone - I am new to the forum. We have been renovating an old stone cottage, and the builders we used covered the house with vandex. All has been ok for a couple of years, however following the torrential rain, we have had some ingress of water above the windows (now filled).
Is this problem likely to get worse over time, as I have been told we should have used a breathable lime render (but this is time consuming and expensive to apply, which is maybe why our builder did not use it) I did email our builder, no reply ...
Is the only way round the problem to hack all the render off and re-do?
Many thanks

My suggestion would be removing all impermeable materials, like sand cement render and replacing with highly permeable materials.

Regards, Alexander