My house was new in 1997 so the wife decides she wants new hardwood floors. I start the demo myself and when I get to the west facing wall I notice the floorboards are flimsy...turns out to be water damage.

Had a house builder come over and he says that the west facing wall, which gets the brunt of storms coming through, slowly allows condensation to weep through the bricks, which then slides down the plastic inside the wall, collects on the 2x4s and slowly eats them away.

You guys might want to put a coat of brick sealant (silicone based) on your outside walls to prevent this.

Here is the picture so far.



Had to cut away the drywall to repair the 2x4s in the framing.

Glad you caught it in time, if you had left it too long you could of ended up with dry rot and that is a real pain. I inhereted a house and it was only while inspecting it the guy next door nearly went through the floor. House was built in 1860 and some of the joists and the whole of the gable end lath & plaster had to be removed upstairs and down, it was a few months work to get it all treated and replaced and £10k in costs, thank goodness for insurance!

Insurance won't cover this as it is from water that comes in from the outside.

The joys of home ownership.

Ouch, that sucks! Does this mean your house doesn't have a cavity wall? Helps great for insulation and moisture problems.

Don't believe I have that.

you dont want to see the water damage on my house..

in a fwe years the 2nd story will cave in for sure, thanks to a concelaed leaking pipe that was leaking for `10+ years, and no one knew about it until our kitchen ceiling just fell out of no where (the pipe was in a void).

not to mention the water damage done to the beams at ground level where most of the water ended up poolin.

in a few years I'll re-finance and get a construction crew to re-build the 2nd level (replace beams and floor boards. etc).

South facing wall was replaced when a tree took most of the side of the house off about 3 years back.

East facing wall needs done. as well as the windows.

We laugh at Hurricanes, but fear Nor-Easters.

But yeah, our insurance company told us it wasnt covered? (the storm damage, i had to pay about $6500 for new beams/framing, and new boards + home wrap + siding (which i bought enough of to just do the whole house). the only thing insurance covered was disposal of the Asbestos Shingles.

Might want to research if the company who built your home has a Class action lawsuit against them
for the design flaw. Depending upon where you live and what type of housing, like if you are in
what they make divisions of homes all within a couple of designs ?

Don't know where you live, but I have over 30 years in residential construction. Around here nobody would ever place glass fibre batts against concrete , even it was damp proofed or coated with a sealant. Poured concrte is bad enough but blocks are like sponges !

Best detail is to install a drainage layer on the outside of the wall over the damp proofing. The draingae layer is available in a number of forms bit is commonly a heavy synthetic sheet with dimple on it. The dimples go against the wall. This intercepts moisture before it hits the wall and directs it to the drain/weeping tiles.

If that's not a possibility then look at installing a polybead insulation against the conrete that is continuos behid the studs. put a heavy coat of damp proofing on the inside but only to grade level.

Also make sure that your eaves trough is clear and that downspouts do NOT connect to your weeping time but lead water well away from the house.

Best of luck with this.

I feel for you... I had something similar last week... in the wall of the kitchen... pain in the... last week was really bad, 3 "family" incidences in one week, totaling a cost of over 4k... probably why I was so short with people.