MJP

Good Morning Thankyou very much Redbeard, Mike and EdHat for taking the time to reply and give us advice. We have taken some time to consider you replies. We have spoken to Building Control to ask them what they would accept as a solution and we are waiting for their reply. Many thanks again. MJP

Good Morning Looking for advice please. Just to build a picture, ours is an unusual property built on a slope from front to back and side to side. Officially an open plan Bungalow but because of the slope, the lounge/diner and kitchen are at 1st floor level whilst the entrance hallway, bedrooms and bathrooms are at ground level. The bungalow is of solid stone construction and was built in 1950 though it looks much older. Part of the bungalow was built above 4 "cellars". The cellars appear on the OS map of 1800s and were possibly used as shelters for animals belonging to the adjoining farmhouse. One of the cellars is now a plant room, is partly below/against earth and will not be a habitable space. It has had some damp proofing treatment at some stage and damp does not appear to be an issue. The three remaining cellars are at ground floor level and each have a window. In some of the cellars the outside ground level is higher (up to 12 inches max approx). Our plan is to convert two of the cellars into a bedroom and an ensuite. We have had the floors dug out and DPM and insulation put down and new concrete laid on top. We have insulated the internal surface of all of the external walls in the bungalow and plan to do the same in the cellar bedroom and ensuite. Our query is what to do to damp proof the external walls. There are a couple of small areas of damp behind the viscuine that runs under the floor. The damp areas are only on the gable end where the ground level is higher outside. There is no damp otherwise. Our plan is to leave the visquine layer in situ and insulate as we have done upstairs using metal tracks and channels and applying Kingspan K118 insulated plasterboard. We are thinking that the void between the kingspan and the stone will allow the wall to "breathe". Is this acceptable? or have we misunderstood the issues around solid stone walls and should we be applying a damp proofing product before insulating? We are desperate to get this right but have spent a lot of time going down damp proofing rabbit holes and back out again. There doesn't seem to be much out there about damp proofing before insulating. For those of you who are still awake and have read until the end, Thankyou. Any advice much appreciated. (I do have more photos but was only able to attach one).

Myself and Husband are currently renovating our house that we bought and moved into in 2019. After moving in we had plans drawn up and instructed a Structural Engineer. The house is of stone construction but the internal walls are made from poured concrete. In order to remodel the house we needed to demolish seven walls. The good news is that only one of the seven walls was load bearing. The bad news is that five of the walls were concrete. Imagine our delight to discover two walls were of brick construction. Happy days. Six walls down now, only one left to go. I enjoy reading the posts on this forum and I have learned so much but if anybody needs any advice about demolishing concrete walls please do ask.