Smell and Damp From Victorian Property Hallway
Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 2:06 pm
Hi,
I'm completely new to DIY and to this forum as well so please bear with me.
My mid-terraced house in North London (built around 1905) has a lovely Victorian hallway with original tiles. Problem is, the section near the front door (about 1sq metre) is very damp (the readings are ridiculous, like 30-40%) and there's a strong smell of mould/must emanating from it that propagates to the rest of the house and sticks on the clothes. The hallway itself is solid (as opposed to suspended), but this particular section I'm talking about sounds hollow when you tap on it, whereas the rest sounds solid. There are also patches that may or may not be due to damp (not sure), but they are definitely only present in this area of the hallway.
There are no leaking pipes anywhere (I got a specialist around who tested the whole house). The front patio (just outside the front door) was redone to a high standard recently. So the only thing I can think of is that the concrete/screed/whatever is underneath the tiles is rotten. An obvious solution would be to pull up the tiles and check but as you can imagine I'm very reluctant to do so. I rang a specialist tiler and he basically said he doesn't want to do it because he wouldn't know what to do once the tiles are removed.
Has anyone ever come across anything like that? Any suggestions whatsoever?
Thanks very much
Andy
I'm completely new to DIY and to this forum as well so please bear with me.
My mid-terraced house in North London (built around 1905) has a lovely Victorian hallway with original tiles. Problem is, the section near the front door (about 1sq metre) is very damp (the readings are ridiculous, like 30-40%) and there's a strong smell of mould/must emanating from it that propagates to the rest of the house and sticks on the clothes. The hallway itself is solid (as opposed to suspended), but this particular section I'm talking about sounds hollow when you tap on it, whereas the rest sounds solid. There are also patches that may or may not be due to damp (not sure), but they are definitely only present in this area of the hallway.
There are no leaking pipes anywhere (I got a specialist around who tested the whole house). The front patio (just outside the front door) was redone to a high standard recently. So the only thing I can think of is that the concrete/screed/whatever is underneath the tiles is rotten. An obvious solution would be to pull up the tiles and check but as you can imagine I'm very reluctant to do so. I rang a specialist tiler and he basically said he doesn't want to do it because he wouldn't know what to do once the tiles are removed.
Has anyone ever come across anything like that? Any suggestions whatsoever?
Thanks very much
Andy