Restoration & Refurbishment

How to treat damp brick walls in cellar?

Anonymous user 28/02/2024 - 3.10 PM

Hi all, I live in an 1870s terrace, with a partially converted cellar - concrete floor, central heating. It has not been tanked and just has the original brick walls. The walls that face the outside of the property and the walls of the coal hole are damp and I want to clean them up and deal with the problem as best as possible without tanking. I've given it a good scrape and got rid of anything loose that can be removed with scraper, wire brush etc e.g. old paint, loose brick, mortar and a blue/grey coating over the brick (not sure what that is?). I'm now left with a mixture of exposed brick and mortar, painted brick, some bricks with the blue/grey stuff on, and they range from being dry bricks to some being very damp. I am going to re point anywhere that needs it, and I want to paint with masonry paint, but should I treat them with anything first - brick cleaner, brick sealer, waterproof render? Should I treat painted brick different to the exposed brick or I remove all the paint first? Which would be time consuming since some isn't coming off easily. I don't require it to be a living space, but I want to have it generally tidy and ok for storage of tools, bikes etc. Thanks for any advice.