How to Treat Wet Walls in Your House . We discuss these indicators in more depth as well as the remedies that will dry out your wet walls and cold and damp patches. Wet patches on walls can encourage black mould growth. The first thing you need to do is establish what’s causing your wet or damp walls. You can have a pretty good idea of this depending on how damp your walls are and whether it’s a whole wall issue. First, test the dampness of your wall using a damp meter preferably, or failing that, the back of your hand. This will help you to establish where exactly the damp areas are. Wet Wall, Possibly With Patches of Black Mould. If the wet walls are in a room in your house that’s below ground, this might be caused by a leak in your water main, or the water main attached to your neighbours’ properties. You can get your water supplier to test the water free of charge – they’ll be able to determine whether the water is sewage, from the mains supply or groundwater. A list of water suppliers is available on Water UK’s website. If the water looks like it’s coming from the ceiling and then onto your wall, it may well be the central heating system that’s leaking – a lot of the pipework will be going through your floors. You can check your pipes manually or get a plumber to do a pressure check to check that your pipes are free from leaks. The leak may also be caused by one of your appliances or by a faulty waste water pipe or surface drain – you can find the tests for these leak sources in PRS’ Water Leak Checklist. Alternatively you can call them on 0. Make sure you fix the source of your leak before attempting to repair the damage done to your walls by the water. Check behind your appliances for any leaks that making your walls damp. As well as the guidance offered on this site and our partners, PRS websites, you can find more help on the website of the Property Care Association. Damp Patches Only in Your Lower Wall Area, Possibly With Black Mould. This indicates that you may have what is known as rising damp. Wet interior walls indicate the presence of damp. An exterior wall coating from never Paint Again UK. How to Patch Wallpaper. Clean up the wall with a damp sponge. Small damp patches on inside lower wall appearing. We have noted a small damp patch appear on the inside lower wall which is. Damp and Condensation Advice. When damp proofing internal walls, Newton damp proof membranes. If a damp patch is small and isolated I. Small patch of damp on interior wall. Strange small damp patches on walls. Wet walls and small patch of mould on lower wall. Wet/damp patch on wall? I have a patch in the hall of my place, interior wall adjoining next. No sign of damp on exterior wall but a patch that comes through. Odd wet spot on interior wall. It is not that hard to re-plaster a small hole. This is where water from the ground underneath or beside your house rises up through your brickwork through capillary action, creating damp in your walls which manifests as damp or wet patches or a whole damp section of wall just above your skirting board. These damp areas can also be marked out by yellowish or brownish stains (known as a . Rising damp can occur when this DPC is missing, broken or bridged. Bridging occurs when debris inside your cavity wall (usually left by builders at the time of construction of your property or it can build up over time) is taller than the level of your DPC, allowing the damp to rise up through this debris and around the DPC to re- enter the wall above the DPC and carry on rising. Damp proof course bridging can also occur externally if an outside object such as the ground in your garden or an outside series of steps has contact with your house’s external wall both above and below the Damp Proof Course. Again, this allows moisture to travel up and around the DPC to re- enter the wall above the DPC and carry on rising, creating damp in your walls. Damp Proof Courses are built into houses to stop damp rising up your walls. How to Fix Rising Damp: First, you should check to see if your house has a DPC. If not, one will have to be inserted. If your house does have a DPC, you need to check that it hasn’t been bridged either internally or externally. ![]() To check for debris inside the cavity you will have to remove one or two bricks from your outside wall at around 6 inches height. Do not remove more than two bricks – if you need to do this, consult a builder or surveyor for advice. More information on removing bricks is available in our Replacing a Brick Project. Once you’ve removed your bricks, have a look for any debris with a torch. Remove any debris that you find by hand wearing thick gloves to protect your hands from sharp objects, dragging anything out that’s out of reach with a crowbar or similar tool. You can remove finer bits of debris with a vacuum cleaner. Remove a brick from your cavity wall to check for debris bridging your DPCIt’s much easier to check your DPC for external bridging – make sure that your garden’s ground isn’t above the level of your DPC, and look out for external structures such as steps that also reach above the DPC. Remove these if possible. If you haven’t got a DPC, OR you can’t remove an external bridging structure that’s present or you haven’t found any debris or bridging, but you have rising damp issues (indicating that you have a broken DPC) you will need to insert a new DPC, above the old one if you already have a DPC in place. ![]() ![]() Inserting a DPC isn’t as hard as it sounds – the easiest and most popular retrofit method involves drilling holes in your external and internal masonry and injecting a chemical cream DPC into those holes. The chemical mixture is absorbed by the brick and joins with itself to form a waterproof layer across your brickwork. You then fill up the holes with mortar which has a waterproofer added to it. How to insert your chemical DPC will largely depend on the type of chemical cream DPC you use – we use Quick. ![]() Cream Chemical DPC from PRS as we have found it to give consistently good results. Insert a new DPC by injecting a chemical DPC cream into your walls. Damp or Cold Patches all Over Your Wall, Possibly With Black Mould. It may be that this is Penetrating Dampness caused by faulty pointing or flashing on your house’s external structure, rusty wall ties in your wall cavities, a poor cavity wall insulation job or the fact that your external walls are exposed to extreme levels of rainfall. If your damp wall is on or around your chimney breast, visit our Chimney Breast Damp Project page. Damp patches all over your wall are typically caused by penetrating dampness. ![]() Faulty Pointing, Rusty Wall Ties, Debris on Wall Ties and Poor Cavity Wall Insulation. Get out and have a look at your external wall that corresponds to the damp or cold internal wall. Have a look for any cracked pointing or bricks – if there are cracks in the pointing, this could be down to anything from subsidence or general movement of the house through to rusted wall ties in your cavities. Cavity walls usually have ties which tie the two walls together and support them. Over time, these can get rusty, which causes them to expand and cracks the adjoining mortar. Cracks in your mortar allow rainwater to enter your walls and remain there as damp which can travel to internal walls and present as damp or wet patches. Even if not much water is allowed to enter in the crack, this ingress of outside air can cause the corresponding patch on your internal wall to be colder than the surrounding internal wall area, creating a cold patch which attracts condensation and encourages black mould growth. A cold patch can also be created on your internal wall near your wall tie if the tie has been loaded up with debris like mortar. This usually happens during the building process, but debris can also accumulate over time. This debris provides a bridge for any moisture on the inside of the external wall to travel to the internal wall, again creating damp and cold patches on your wall which encourage mould growth. Similarly, if there are any gaps in your cavity wall insulation as a result of your insulation being installed incorrectly, this can create cold patches on your walls which attract condensation and mould. If debris gathers on your wall ties this can create damp and cold patches on your walls. How to Check For and Fix Faulty Pointing, Wall Ties and Cavity Wall Insulation. If there are any faults in your pointing, get this checked out by a reputable builder and repointed. Your builder can check the wall ties behind the cracks at the same time and replace any that are rusty. If your pointing is fine you can check if any wall ties are causing your damp problems by using a metal detector to see if there are any ties near your damp areas. If there are, you can take a look at the tie by removing one or two bricks near the tie (information on how to remove bricks is mentioned above). Once you’ve removed your bricks you can check your tie for any rusting and debris buildup. If you need to replace your tie, follow the instructions in our Replacing Wall Ties Project page. Get your pointing fixed to prevent water from entering your external walls. You can also remove bricks to check for any gaps in your cavity wall insulation – if there are gaps, you can get your cavity wall insulation reinstalled but this may involve removing the original insulation which can prove difficult. Consult with a couple of reputable insulation installers to get their opinion on what is best to do in your particular situation. Faulty Flashing, Guttering or Roof Tiles. It may be that your damp walls are being caused by faults in your roof or guttering. You can use a pair of good binoculars to check your guttering, the flashing on your roof and chimney stack and your roof tiles for any breaks or damage. If there are any breaks, these may well be allowing water into your roof, where it can run down your rafters and enter your walls. Broken roof tiles could be letting water into your house, creating wet patches on your walls. How to Fix Faulty Flashing, Guttering and Roof Tiles. If you do have faults in your flashings you can either get these replaced (the better long term option but quite expensive) or you can use flashing tape to seal the cracks yourself – we’ve used Syl. Glas in the past and have found it to produce a good level of waterproofing. If your guttering is faulty, you will need to replace it. There’s more information on replacing plastic guttering available in our Replacing Plastic Guttering Project page. If one or more of your roof tiles is cracked you will have to replace these. 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