Perished DPC! All manner of questions and solutions to problems and issues surrounding the subject of brickwork, blockwork and stonework

[TONYTONE]

Bear with me on this please.

I have a victorian 1910 mid terrace and last night stripped the wallpaper off in the front room. Behind I found what look like two damp patches. The front room has a floating floor of which I can get under and after a quick inspection it looks like the DPC has gone ie you can get hold of a piece and it will snap off.

Does anyone know how I can resolve this? i was thinking that to replace the DPC on such an old house would be a nightmare and wondered if painting the exposed wall under the floor with somthing like linseed oil would be the best bet. Would coating the underfloor section of the wall with insulation be of any help?

Cheers in advance folks.

Tone

[richm]

Hi,
If your dpc has perished & you are getting damp rising up from the course of bricks below, the only & cheapest solution is an injected chemical new dpc (you can hire the machine & solution yourself) but if you get a company in at least they will guarantee their work.
If dampness is penetrating through brickwork above dpc & you want to 'paint' the internal bricks with something I would suggest lots of coats of bitumen.
Hope this helps

[TONYTONE]

Cheers Rich, I did that on saturday. Whether that will solve the problem remains to be seen. Your Bitumen idea has occurd to me but at the moment I wonder whether sealing this section of the wall will give the water nowhere to go and also possibly make the wall sweat. It would be good if I could paint the wall with somthing that would disperse the water but still allow it to breath. WD40 would be ideal if it didn,t smell. Need to do some more digging before I come up with a better solution.

Anyone with any more suggestion would be very much appreciated.

Tone

[TheDoctor5]

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