Friday 4 September 2009

Wanna see some damp?

The corner in our front room had been damp for a while - it had got worse over the past couple of months though and rather than have wallpaper that was falling off then we thought we would rather have dodgy looking walls for a bit!

This is the corner! We bought the house nearly 7 years ago and the people who lived in it before us were bodgeit and crap - or certainly used builders who were! They obviously knew about the damp but rather than fix it they took the route of 'lets cover it up and hope that the new people don't notice' and to be fair we didn't notice for several years.

See that silver bit in the photograph above - it's tin foil. Yes they really did cover the damp wall with tin foil and then put lining paper and the wallpaper over the top. Yes it stopped the damp from coming through for a few years but now our walls are really, really wet and need all the old plaster knocking off and re-doing.

Bloody idiots!!! I could tell tales of all the other dodgy jobs we have found around the house but I won't - not yet anyway! Luckily we have dehumidifiers for our damp cellar (that was our dodgy builder this time!) so we have brought one up to the front room and it is drying the wall out nicely. Luckily we know what the problem is and it is easily fixed :)

That's the trouble with living in a house that is over 110 years old!

10 comments:

CurlyPops said...

Eeeeek. What a mess. I hope it doesn't cost too much to fix up.

Liz said...

aggh I know the feeling - ours is as well and it cost us £3000 just for the scaffolding so the damp areas could be fixed.... old houses are nice but very costly....

Lauren Denney said...

Oh No! that is pretty bad. hope it gets fixed soon. Yuk, thinking the tin foil idea was a stupid one!

Dolly Cool Clare said...

I agree, Damp is a real problem in older houses. My house is 101 years old but thankfully had a full dampproof done about 7 years ago - so no damp yet, touch wood!

French Nanny said...

Oops!!! I had a lesser problem where the previous owners had tacked what looked like shed roofing felt to the wall. Kept the damp off their wallpaper for a while... Good news was it was the guttering, which has all been replaced now.

Glassprimitif said...

Crikey! That is DAMP! We have an old house and just had most of it replastered.

Tip Top said...

EEEkkkk! Can you liven it up with some chickens?

Tweed Thoughts said...

Eeeek! Commiserations - my central heating system is still on the blink (doesn't photo so well though!) Hope you get sorted soon :)

Jennifer Rose said...

tin foil?!? o.0 hmm I've seen it all now. Our flat is about 55 years old and has horrible problems with the damp, but at least we rent and don't have to worry that much about it besides ripping off the messed up wallpaper.

PaisleyJade said...

That is shocking - shame on them!!! Hope you guys don't have too much hassle fixing it up (our place is 90 years old and needs mega work!).