Where Does Water Come From?

Humidity in Old Houses - part 2

I would like  to thank all of you who sent me sweet messages or left thoughful comments on my health. It turns out to be severe anemia: I'm lacking iron, vitamins B1, B9 and B12 as well as vitamin D. It does explain why I was so tired and also some other symptoms like sore tongue (it took me a while to get to the doctor as I thought it was stupid to say "my tongue hurts!") and many chilblains. But now with the proper medicine, I hope I'll be back to my full self in a few weeks (the doctor said I needed to be patient). Meanwhile, it give me an excuse to enjoy some quiet time in my cottage.

Je suis bien épuisée en ce moment et cela me donne une excuse pour musarder à l'intérieur de mon cottage.

It looks quite cozy, doesn't it? Well, when I bought the house, that same wall looked like that.

C'est assez cozy, hein? Eh bien, cela n'a pas toujours été ainsi.

Yes, it is the same wall! I hope you are admiring the two-toned Sponge Bob walls! And I lived with those walls for a year... I know, I deserve a crown. I wonder where it is.

Admirez les magnifiques murs "Bob l'éponge" en deux tons laissés par les anciens propriétaires! Et oui, j'ai cohabité avec ces murs pendant un an. Je mérite une médaille.

Now the before/after was not one of those easy one that takes a few hard days of work before the full reveal.
There was a little misadventure you may have read about here.

L'avant/après ne s'est pas fait d'un coup de baguette magique, car j'ai rencontré des petits problèmes que vous pouvez découvrir  ici.

Water in the walls!

Now, the first idea that comes to mind is that there's a leak somewhere.

La première idée qui vient à l'esprit quand on découvre de l'eau dans sa maison, c'est qu'il y a une fuite quelque part. Bon, évidemment, une bonne fuite de la baignoire aurait été trop simple.

 This is only my dream bathtub. If you've taken the tour of the house, you know that my bathroom is yellow, orange and green! It might not be pretty, but there's nothing leaking in it. It would have been an easy fix.

The second idea is that there's a problem with the roof. It's usually very difficult to find where the water comes from on the roof. If in doubt, have it check by a professional.

La deuxième idée est qu'il puisse y avoir un problème avec le toit. Ce n'était pas mon cas, puisque l'eau venait d'en-bas. J'ai quand même fait vérifier le toit, ça ne fait pas de mal!

Even though I knew water wasn't coming from the roof in my case, I later had it checked as it's quite old.

Enfin, ce que personne n'aime entendre mais qui s'est avéré vrai pour ma maison: l'humidité ascensionnelle. Les murs des vieilles maisons en pierre sont directement enfoncés dans le sol et lorsque celui-ci est humide, l'eau pénètre dans le mur et remonte en surface pour s'évaporer.

Last, the water can come from the ground. And that is not good! That was what was happening to my cottage.

Being an old stone cottage, walls are built directly into the ground, when a more modern construction would have its wall built on a slab.

You can see on the image above how water can easily go up in that kind of walls. A professor of humidity in an architecture school I then contacted told me stone walls acted like sugar. They "drink" the water (I used syrup in my picture - because water isn't really camera friendly).

Now, it wasn't very good news, but there are different kind of solutions to rising damp. You might want to come back to witness the frightful pictures of the solution I chose! At some point the cottage wasn't very cottage-y!

Thanks for visiting and see you soon,

I'm linking with: