Wednesday, February 11, 2015

The Wall of Damp Doom

As you can tell I'm enjoying coming up with the titles for these posts!

So we called in Heber Crawford the builder and he recommended pointing the outside of the wall, as we do have crumbling mortar between the bricks.  But the big thing was to keep the damp from coming through to the inside wall and stay on the outside so that it can evaporate that directions.  He wanted to take off the plaster from the wall a meter down to the floor all the way to the inside brick work.  Then he would clad it with a damp proof membrane and put back on a thick coat of plaster.

We also asked him to fill in a doorway we had that was redundant.  In a small house like ours, you just have to have as much wall space as possible.  We had furniture in front of that door for years now, and it just seemed stupid.  I'm sure that when the house was built in the 70s, you didn't want people walking into your kitchen but we don't mind now.  So the door is now gone!  That one took a bit of talking about with hubby.  He wasn't sure, but I told him that we can't put the book cases back on the outside wall as we need to watch the condensation this can cause.  So the book cases need to go on the wall with the door and it looks silly to have a door behind furniture.  I think he was just being his cautious self, which is another way we balance each other out.

We had a problem though.  Heber and George started to work on the walls and did a damp course just to make sure it was OK.  This was an injection method.  Heber called us in and told us he was worried about the old plaster.  The original builders had used something that turns into dust when you manipulate it.  We have been battling this for a while, as we have a hard time hanging heavy shelves and stuff due to the poor quality of the wall.  He was afraid that it would cause so much dust that it wouldn't be healthy for them but especially me.  So we decided that it would be better to put the damp proof membrane on the wall with out digging into it and he would then plaster over that.  They did a good job and left us with the painting and filling in of the last few holes etc on the other wall.  The outside didn't get done because we kept having rain.  So we will have to get him out again later in the year.

 Rich spent his time taking the wallpaper off and I took off the radiators.

This is where some of the fun stuff comes in.  I've picked new radiators as I wanted to have them on the walls with the windows and have tall thin ones.  Rich advised me on the BTU's we needed so that we have the right amount of heat still and I picked these beauties:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/172966441914465704/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/172966441914465700/

We had a bit of trouble with delivery as they used a company that hasn't come into the 21st century and can take the time to let you know when in the day they will be delivering.  But they are now in our garage waiting to be put on the wall.  I LOVE plumbing, so I'm looking forward to that!

Well, now back downstairs to do more spray painting.........

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