It looks as though you have ceramic floor tiles.
Unless there is a cellar underneath that floor, the ceramic tiles may be contributing to the damp problem.
The tiles will prevent the floor from breathing and will force any moisture up through the walls.
It is probably worth removing a couple of tiles and determining what is underneath those.
Limestone flagstones would be far better.
As others have said, you need to increase the airflow by unblocking any vents and perhaps installing mechanical ventilation.
It is worth searching for “damp” in this forum as there have been others with similar problems.
Also worth googling “Peter Ward damp” .
I’ve attached a couple of articles that may be of interest.
I cannot remove the tiles as I have no budget for that unfortunately and no budget for a ‘VMC’ either
I went outside, I have a little terrace and on the house wall, ground level there was a brick up so I thought it had been placed there to prevent rodents coming in possibly by the previous owners, however when I managed to dislodge it, lo and behold, a pipe, a water pipe is under the house floor?
Any idea what this is or was for? The space around has been filled with cement.
On the other side is my living room, very slightly raised above this opening.
VMC kit may be affordable but the work involved would be costly. I have had two insulation/heating RGE companies look at the house and both said it would involved making holes on ceilings, main stone walls etc because if the design of the house, so it would mean serious work and they weren’t even keen on the job.
What I need to do is:
do that living room up (big work, I have never done anything like this, on my own)
get the Mairie to fill in the cracks in the gutter/pavement, see photo
pay someone if there is money left, to do a “chappe” or “agreage” , pour cement all over my 20sq meters terrace as it is not level at all, it caves in in the middle. I got the roof removed a month ago, rain water collects there, not good! I get it out but I need to make it so that the slope is towards the gate. This is not the cause of some dampness in the house as I took away the roof a month ago and been in the house 6 months…but it s certainly not improving it.
Many ways to skin a cat as they used to say. No doubt doing the install the way they normally do it would be a lot of work, they may also make it that way for income stream but looking at it from another angle with single room units that link via wifi or bluetooth with minimal interuption to the fabric?
In all seriousness have a look at YouTube for videos of how to do DIY tasks like panelling, plastering, making holes etc, it can be an amazing resource for the buding diyer, for inspiration have a look at the video below.
Doug Ibbs and Deni Daniel were a true inspiration to me because of the work on Chez Jallot and learnt to make staircases, tile, plumbing all from videos on YouTube.
I will break off, remove all the plater, leave the stones exposed and then apply Chaux/limewash and the end.
I may pay someone for the Chaux job but this is the cheapest and easiest skills wise option for me so far.
Anybody has any idea what the heck the plastic pipe is under the living room for (it opens onto the outer wall)?
check the survey report which you would have had at Purchase… it might help you figure this out…
do you mean it reaches the outer wall, but doesn’t go through it… ??
it is coming from under the living room and poking out onto the outside/terrace. It is strange. when the next builder comes in, whoever that might be with my many jobs to be done (plumber, etc.) I will ask them to tell me what this is.
Impossible to tell from the picture. Its dry so possibly an old sewage or drainage pipe. Can you poke anything up it (drain or chimney rods) to see how far it goes?
Oh I pray there never was one! It is a village house, destroyed during the war (village got bombed) and rebuilt in 1945, nobody can be sure anywhere (Mairie, Service des Eaux) that there wasn’t one but nobody has had one in the village and the pipe is not a pipe for sceptic tanks, we can see it is a fairly recent rain water pipe (the dimension being 100 mm in diameter) and the material/colour.
, if you can drill a hole and use a Stanley knife, you and easily do it.
