Hi there,
I'm a new homeowner as of last June and pretty much a novice in all areas so I could use some advice. It's a brick townhouse in Baltimore City with a half-finished basement. The part that isn't finished is towards the front of the house.
The sellers had painted the room white but I believe it was just paint and not any kind of sealant. After living here a few months I started to noticed that the front wall felt very very slightly damp in a few areas and there were some brown discoloration. And by damp I mean that I would run my hand over it and a tiny bit of paint would flake off and my finger was a bit wet but it wasn't much. Not enough that I was worried about storing things there. Still I figured it could get worse so I bought some Thoroseal and put two coats of that on (this was December-January or so).
A few weeks later, the brown spots had returned in some of the areas and some of those spots were damp in the same way I mentioned above.
Last night I was in there and noticed that the paint along the bottom right-hand side looked strange and when I touched it and picked at it, it easily crumbled away exposing the unpainted brick underneath. This is the first I've seen it so I was shocked. It's only on the bottom right-hand side. The rest of the wall seems dry even even on some of the brown spots.
So I'm looking for recommendations on what to do. I'm afraid to call a waterproofing company because I don't want to get roped into spending more money than we need to fix the problem. As I mentioned, the rest of the basement is finished and we've had no water problems. Nothing comes up from the floor. It's just the front wall that gets damp.
I'm thinking about scraping away as much of the paint as I can and reapplying the Thoroseal on those trouble spots since the first time I applied it it was on top of the paint that the sellers used and not to the brick surface.
Any other thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I'm a new homeowner as of last June and pretty much a novice in all areas so I could use some advice. It's a brick townhouse in Baltimore City with a half-finished basement. The part that isn't finished is towards the front of the house.
The sellers had painted the room white but I believe it was just paint and not any kind of sealant. After living here a few months I started to noticed that the front wall felt very very slightly damp in a few areas and there were some brown discoloration. And by damp I mean that I would run my hand over it and a tiny bit of paint would flake off and my finger was a bit wet but it wasn't much. Not enough that I was worried about storing things there. Still I figured it could get worse so I bought some Thoroseal and put two coats of that on (this was December-January or so).
A few weeks later, the brown spots had returned in some of the areas and some of those spots were damp in the same way I mentioned above.
Last night I was in there and noticed that the paint along the bottom right-hand side looked strange and when I touched it and picked at it, it easily crumbled away exposing the unpainted brick underneath. This is the first I've seen it so I was shocked. It's only on the bottom right-hand side. The rest of the wall seems dry even even on some of the brown spots.
So I'm looking for recommendations on what to do. I'm afraid to call a waterproofing company because I don't want to get roped into spending more money than we need to fix the problem. As I mentioned, the rest of the basement is finished and we've had no water problems. Nothing comes up from the floor. It's just the front wall that gets damp.
I'm thinking about scraping away as much of the paint as I can and reapplying the Thoroseal on those trouble spots since the first time I applied it it was on top of the paint that the sellers used and not to the brick surface.
Any other thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.