Here is a selection of common questions and answers about period houses for your information

Many people have had similar queries and problems regarding their period homes over the years. It is often possible to provide general guidance in answer to these queries without carrying out a detailed inspection. A selection of these are published below for general information.

If you have a general query not covered here that you would like answered, use the form at the bottom of the page and I will email you an answer back - your original query and my reply may be edited and posted here for the benefit of others too.

What can I do to stop noise coming through my party wall?

Q. The party wall between myself and my neighbour is wattle and daub, every sound can be heard through the wall. Both cottages are Grade II listed, are we allowed to sound proof the wall? One issue is that my side the only wall
showing beams is the party wall, and I really don't want to clad it.

A. Yes, you would be allowed to sound proof your wall provided you do not remove part of it, damage it, or carry out work that causes it to deteriorate. It sounds as though both cottages could have originally been a single house, with the wall in question being an internal room partition with little resistance to sound. Unfortunately, stopping sound travelling through existing buildings
is extremely difficult, and even the Building Regulations admit, that it is often impossible to fully achieve in a listed or vernacular building without destroying it. You will not be able to totally eliminate the noise, but may be able it get it down to an acceptable level and type.

You are likely to be more successful at reducing the sound if you can do it jointly with your neighbour. You say the beams are exposed on your side of the wall and you do not want to clad them. These are most likely to be a major cause of sound transmission though. The beams would never have been exposed originally. At worst, they would have been covered with a distemper as part of the general room decoration which would have been regularly refreshed. This alone would have improved the sound insulation by ensuring no hairline gaps could form around the wattle and daub panels, or between timber joints. More often, the timbers were completely plastered over internally which was even more efficient at preventing hairline gaps. It only needs the slightest gap in a wall to totally undermine its effectiveness at keeping sound out. I would doubt your wattle and daub provides a good soundproof seal with exposed timbers unless it has been replastered. If your neighbours beams are plastered over, that will certainly help but unless your side is also well sealed, your party wall may only be the thickness of your neighbour's plaster as regards sound insulation.

I think the first priority must be to ensure the party wall is as pristine as possible on both sides - no electrical sockets or wiring let into either side, no radiators hung on either side of the wall, well decorated with no hint of any gaps/splits/cracks in the corners/beams/wattle and daub. If you really want to keep the beams exposed, you could get a plasterer to add a new coat of lime plaster onto the face of the wattle and daub panels then just run it slightly over the edges of the adjoining beams to ensure no gaps can develop while leaving the majority of the beam face exposed. The lime plaster will not shrink and crack like modern plaster and won't cause any damage to the historic fabric. Sound will still come through the wall because it is relatively thin and light. If the cottages were more modern, the standard next step after sealing off all possibility of any gaps as above, would be to build an additional solid wall up inside one or other cottage, leaving a gap between the new wall and the old party wall. I doubt either you or your neighbour would want to do this though, and you would have to get permission for the new wall to reassure the conservation officer you were not knocking down anything to make way for it.

Although you cannot stop all noise coming through the wall, you may be able to absorb it and reduce the amount travelling through the wall. Would it be possible to rearrange furniture so that large items stand against the party wall on both sides? Bookcases, sideboards, and other large solid backed items standing against the wall would reflect sound back into the room away from the neighbours so, if you could each do it, you will both reduce the amount of noise coming through the wall to some extent. To absorb the noise, you could adopt the old trick of hanging tapestries and other fabric wall-coverings (heavy curtains even) on the wall. The fabric will absorb and deaden the noise that comes through and with furniture standing in front, may prove a rather more attractive feature than a new wall.

What can I do about a damp room running into a hillside?

Q. I have a 19th century cottage where 30 years ago the outhouse/scullery was turned into the kitchen. The room is built into the hillside behind but has a 20 cm gap between the walls and retaining wall of the hill. The rear wall is tanked and appears to be dry and sound. When I moved in 2 years ago I found dry rot has penetrated under the asphalt floor which covered the york stone flags - which has meant tearing up the asphalt. Whereas most of the exposed stone floor is now drying out, the slabs in the kitchen remain damp. Shall I dig them all up, put in a damp proof membrane and concrete - maybe underfloor heating - or is that asking for more problems?

A. If your stone floor slabs are remaining very damp, the problem is not with the floor but the surrounding kitchen structure. The structure should be allowing moisture to escape naturally as it does in the rest of the cottage but, it sounds as though the surrounding structure is capturing moisture and forcing it to escape through your floor slabs. My immediate suspicion is that the outside ground level is too high where the kitchen runs into the hillside and, instead of addressing the real problem, someone has previously attempted to mask it by applying a tanking. Tanking can only work if it is applied to the outside of a wall and it is fully bonded (during the initial construction) to a totally sound physical damp proof course which in turn, is fully bonded to a totally sound damp proof membrane beneath the floor structure. Your cottage does not sound like the sort of late 19th century house to have had such an installation, so I assume the tanking has been retrospectively applied.

You refer to a gap between the retaining wall for the hillside and the back wall of the cottage. This gap is important as it is intended to allow moisture to escape from your walls naturally, and prevent excess moisture percolating down through the hillside into your kitchen. The ground level at the base of the 20cm gap should be at least 10cm below the level of your kitchen floor slabs. You also need to ensure any run-off water from the hillside, or seepage through the retaining wall, can harmlessly run away from your cottage. (If the retaining wall has not been built with lime mortar joints, it should have regular drainage vents running through the wall to prevent any water build-up behind.) 20cm is not wide enough to provide space to work, or for maintenance so, if you plan to keep the cottage for many years , you may want to think about creating a new retaining wall further back.

Tanking on the outside of the wall will prevent moisture from the foundations and floor from escaping outside, so it will continue to come out through your floor. Hence, if the tanking has been applied to the outside of the wall, when your ground level has been corrected, you should then strip the tanking off - if possible without damaging the wall. If damage to the wall of your cottage is inevitable, you could have the wall lime rendered afterwards as a way to make good and protect it.

I expect the reason your tanked wall 'appears to be dry and sound', is either the tanking is internal, or the wall has been covered with a modern waterproof cement plaster to hide the dampness. If you want to have modern kitchen units against the wall, I would personally take a pragmatic approach and leave the inside surface as is, and rely on the fixing of the outside problems to ensure the wall slowly dries out. You must ensure that any gaps under any kitchen units are ventilated into the rest of the room and not sealed behind solid kick-boards, or your dry rot may reappear.

I would not recommend taking up your floor slabs and installing a damp proof membrane, concrete, or underfloor heating as you are likely to create further long term problems. Any use of concrete, or a damp proof membrane, will prevent moisture from beneath the floor slabs (which should be drastically reduced by the above measures) from getting out. The moisture will therefore be forced to travel to the surrounding walls and floors to escape. This will create new dampness problems in the surrounding walls and make your nearby stone floors become damp again. You could install underfloor heating without putting in a damp proof membrane but this would accelerate the rate of evaporation through your floor, and suck extra moisture in from the surrounding ground. The increased moisture movement and evaporation will leave excessive white salt encrustations on your floor slabs, and also cause the surface to break down as a result of other salts crystallizing beneath the surface. The increased moisture and heat will also encourage dry rot to thrive and grow below the floor again.

Background information on your dry rot:

The fungus referred to as dry rot, is a large, mainly harmless organism that can cover an area measured in acres and can live for centuries. It occurs naturally in the foothills and lower slopes of the Himalayas where it lives in the ground. It does not live in or on timber but merely feeds on it occasionally to grow quickly. In this country, it has become established as a permanent and usually harmless occupant of most buildings - recent research has discovered that by the time any building in this country reaches 50 years of age, the dry rot fungus is almost invariably living somewhere within it. The dry rot fungus actually lives in masonry walls and the ground beneath the building. Your finding of it beneath asphalt is therefore to be expected. The only time dry rot will become a problem is when timber in stagnant air is allowed to get damp. The dry rot fungus will then leave the adjacent ground or masonry to gorge on the soft and juicy timber for a while before retreating back to continue its life in quiet again. The only way to prevent damage by dry rot is to, preferably, properly control the moisture levels in the walls and floors (i.e. do not seal moisture into them), or at least ensure any timber prone to dampness does not sit in stagnant air. So called chemical treatments for dry rot are totally harmless to it - despite being highly toxic to humans. All the traditional myths about burning timber, stripping plaster etc. to get rid of dry rot are untrue and cause more damage than the fungus itself. Interestingly, the rise in popularity of underfloor heating, is apparently being mirrored by a rise in dry rot attacks as the heating pipes generate warm, moist conditions with no air movement which are perfect for the dry rot fungus to grow quickly.

What can I do to repair an old stone floor?

Q. I have discovered an old stone floor beneath a layer of asphalt that I have just removed from one of the ground floor rooms of my house. The stone slabs on the floor were wet when first uncovered but are beginning to dry out now the asphalt has been removed. I would like to keep the stone slabs but am at a loss as how best to finish the floor. The original stone slabs are in poor condition after the asphalt - do you think I could lay a new porous stone floor over them - perhaps modern 3cm tiles - using a lime based grout?

A. A new natural stone floor could be laid but will be expensive. I would expect modern 3cm tiles to need bedding in mortar to prevent cracking but you could check with the supplier/manufacturer. If you use a lime mortar bedding it will take a long time before it has cured sufficiently to walk on. I would personally try easing up the original slabs, and turn them to see if their underside was good enough to use as the new top surface. If it is, add some fresh fine sand to the ground if necessary and relay them upside down. If the backs have not been dressed up, it may be worth a trip to your local stone mason to see how much it would cost to just give the backs a quick dress and rough polish. If you have any missing or very badly broken sections that cannot be reused, you get surprisingly good results by inserting clay pamment tiles as repairs. They don't have to be colour matched and look like authentic period repairs - which is essentially what they are. They wear and behave exactly the same way as the stone and help enhance the character of the floor while still being practical.

How can I deal with whitewash prior to redecorating?

Q. My entire cottage appears to have had some sort of whitewash over the walls and ceilings in the past. This is very powdery and I want to know what I can do about it so I can redecorate.

A. If your whitewash is very soft and chalky, which it sounds, it is probably a soft distemper. The normal treatment prior to redecorating these in the past was to wash them down with plain water to remove the soft powdery top surface. Often just a wash down will restore the surface and bring the colour back. Being such a soft chalky finish and prone to powdering, soft distempers were generally only used on ceilings. They should still be used on ceilings with cornices and other mouldings as the washing back prior to redecorating prevents the plaster details getting clogged and destroyed as happens with modern emulsion paints.

If soft distemper has been used on your walls below 'picture rail height', you will need to remove it completely by washing the walls down before redecorating as nothing else will stay on if you just decorate over the top. You may find the best way to remove it is to sparingly use a wallpaper steam plate to moisten a small area of distemper, then scrape it off with a broad bladed wallpaper stripper. You can then give the wall a final wash down to remove the last vestiges. Be warned though, it is a messy job and try not to get the walls and floor too wet.

Many builders will tell you to seal it with a coat of PVA glue then just decorate over it. This is not good for your cottage though. The PVA will form an impermeable vapour barrier that encourages future damp and mould problems.

Once the old distemper has been removed, the best finish for your cottage walls is either a non-washable wallpaper, or an oil-bound (washable) distemper. These are vapour permeable so will help prevent condensation and dampness problems. Modern emulsions are not properly vapour permeable so are not recommended - having said that, ironically the most vapour permeable modern emulsion paints are the trade versions so you may get away with one of these.

Will knocking through the front and back rooms of my Victorian home cause any problems?

Q. I am contemplating opening up the front and back rooms of my Victorian terrace by inserting double doors into the wall between them. Is this likely to create any problems for my house?

A. This will need someone who understands 19th century construction methods to inspect the house and advise you. Unlike modern buildings, many internal walls of 18th/19th/early 20th century houses are structural - they support not only the floors but often form spine walls that support the roof and prevent it pushing the outside walls over. The wall between the front and back walls of most 19th century terrace houses is often a spine wall supporting the roof.

On a modern building this would not matter providing a proper lintel was installed correctly over the new doors. With period buildings though, generally the size of any foundations or footings supporting the wall, is related more to the width of the wall than the load it carries. As internal walls are thinner than external ones, your internal wall will probably have smaller foundations or footings than the other walls - despite carrying as much as, or more, weight than the other walls. Often these spine walls are right on their limit already. Inserting double doorways or arches etc. shifts the weight distribution by removing the load entirely from the area of the opening onto the remaining sections of wall either side. If the wall was already on the limit of what it could support, the redistribution will overload the remaining sections causing settlement leading to cracking, sloping floors and sagging of the roof.

You can sometimes tell if a spine wall is at the limits of its foundation support by the plaster. If the plaster beneath the wallpaper or paint contains a number of fine diagonal cracks running upwards towards the middle of the wall from where it meets the outside or party walls, this is a sign that the spine wall foundations are less substantial than the main walls and the wall has settled more than the main ones.

Do I need to worry about badly split beams?

Q. The ceiling beams in my 17th century cottage have large splits running through them, with the biggest ones being almost the full length of the beams. Have the beams been seriously weakened and what should I do about it?

A. From your description, these sound like an extreme version of the normal shrinkage cracks, called shakes, you get in most large timbers due to drying out. Normally these splits are very narrow (up to a width capable of gripping a coin such as a ten pence piece) and you only get one or two splits per side. Larger splits or many more of them, are nearly always caused by central heating being set to too high a temperature (either now or in the past) which rapidly pulls the natural moisture out of all the timbers.

The splits should be wedge-shaped in cross section - wide at the surface, narrowing to a point in the centre of the beam. Provided none of the splits pass completely through any of the beams, they will not have seriously affected the strength of the beams. The ceiling beams main job is to support the floor joists so if the beams are weakened by the splits, the floors immediately above the beams will be slightly springy. To check this, work out the position of each beam when in the rooms above, stand over the middle of each beam and rise up on your toes then quickly drop onto your heels. If the beam is sound, the floor will feel very solid as though you are standing on a wall, if the beam is weak, you will feel the floor move and vibrate.

If any of your beams seem weakened when checked, you will need to call on the services of a good carpenter. He will also check if the beam is still seated properly in the wall as it may have twisted or decayed at the ends which could also account for the weak support. He will then splice in new pieces of timber where needed to restore the strength.

What can I do about a damp wall?

Q. I have an 18th century cottage which originally formed part of the neighbouring house. One room sticks into the neighbour's house and overlooks their back garden. The ground levels of both back gardens are quite high but are worst in the neighbour's - the floor of my room overlooking their garden must be at least a foot lower than the garden and my window isn't much above their paving. The wall adjoining my neighbour's garden is damp despite having been previously sealed internally against damp by a builder. The neighbour's paving is concrete and is used for storing logs against the wall. What can I do about the damp?

A. The sealant applied by your builder has almost certainly made the problem worse by sealing moisture into the wall. Ideally, you need to persuade the neighbours to remove their concrete paving and lower the ground level. This will reduce the amount of moisture coming into the wall and so improve your problem. In reality, you will probably have to remove the plaster from inside the wall along with any visible sealant, and then either fix an internal lining, or build a second wall up inside the outside wall. A clear continuous gap must be left between the original wall and the new lining or wall, which can then be ventilated direct to the outside to allow the natural moisture to escape.

If you have a query not covered above, regarding the correct treatment for a period house which you would like general advice on, just use the help request form below and I will endeavour to answer it for you.

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David M. Kinsey - Period House Pathologist

Diagnosing and Solving Problem Conditions

for Houses Built between 1500 - 1939