I have recently moved home, and the outside garage is very cold and damp. It is a single wall garage and no insulation . Can I waterproof the bricks or should I frame the inside,insulate and plasterboard it. The garage is free standing and not attached to the dwelling house. One side of the garage has the soil from the garden up against the wall. I was thinking of digging down to the foundations and whilst removing the soil, getting strong plastic placing it against the wall and putting in a pebble pipe and covering with stones thus creating a channel for any excess water as I think its coming through the brick work due to the soil.
Are you a tradesperson and able to answer this question?
if your garage base was not poured onto a DPM then the damp can rise through the concrete so framing and plasterboarding will not really make things any better. Standing air can also cause condensation type damp so fitting vents to create a through flow of air will help. A good de-humidifier will go a long way to removing damp but it needs to breath only the air in the garage to work well, so block any vents while using it. If your damp is due to lack of use and standing air then you should be able to dry it out quite well. if though your damp is due to penetration then you need to investigate and repair the problem first. As for waterproofing the bricks, i have used the product many times and found it generally very good
It is a garage and this is something you need to remember - it was not designed or intended to be a habitable area.
Single coursed brickwork will allow damp ingress since there is no cavity.
You will be throwing good money away by cheep fixes such as waterproofing and plasterboard.
If you want a habitable / warm area you may need to consider knocking it down and re-building.
