Rising damp in Newtown, QLD

How Newtown was built, and what that means for damp

Newtown is close-in, old, and mixed. Nineteenth century cottages sit beside postwar infill and a good deal of recent renovation, and renovation is one place the damp can start. Stripping a hundred year old cottage back and sealing it up with modern paint and render can turn a wall that was coping into a wall that is failing.

The housing stock in Newtown

Small solid-wall cottages dominate the older streets. A solid wall was designed to take up water and give it back, slowly, through lime mortar and permeable paint. A cement render or acrylic paint does the opposite. Where a cottage has been rendered in cement and painted in acrylic, the water still arrives and now has nowhere to leave.

The ground under Newtown

Ground levels can creep up with each round of works — new footpaths, new driveways, new turf over old. The original builders left a clear gap between the soil and the first course of brick. Where that gap no longer exists, restoring it can be more useful than anything that can be injected into the wall.

Newtown in figures

What the Newtown figures mean for a damp wall

Both causes in the detail above can be checked from outside, with a tape and a look at the coating. Newtown's centre is 0.9 km from the Bremer River, so for a house near the river, check Ipswich City Council's flood information too.

Prices and next steps for Newtown

The six signs are on the home page, the order of the work on how it works, prices on the cost page and the measuring method on the about page. If cement render or acrylic paint is trapping the water, taking it off is part of the price. Lowering the ground against the wall can do more than anything injected.

Talk it through in Newtown

Call 0489 270 985

Rising damp help in other suburbs

We work across the Ipswich local government area and the western corridor.