.org builders - advice/suggestions please

I'm in the process of building a bike shed/garage. I have a brick wall on one side of my garden that I decided to use as one side of my shed. The shed is finished apart from the doors. When I went inside tonight to do a bit of work, I noticed the brickwork was wet. No water has leaked into the shed, so it's coming through the brickwork. It's a double thickness brick wall,it's old and in need of repointing on my neighbours side. Has anyone got any suggesting as to the best way of stopping this moisture coming through. The wall has a double row of blue bricks just above groung level. I assumed that these would stop any rising damp. I don't think the damp has risen from the ground. the wall was perfectly dry 2 days ago and now it's wet all over.

Cheers in advance.

black jack will seal it really well, but is a really nasty job

Cuprinol also do brick and masonry sealers that you can just paint on but I cant tell you from experience how good it is.

[embee]

Might just be condensation. Don't know what it's been like where you are but today here my garage was quite cold and going outside it was like entering a turkish bath, warm and humid. When that hits a cold surface it drops the moisture out.

Leaking gutters and downpipes cause an awful lot of damp issues, brick walls on their own are usually reasonably OK unless there's a concentrated source of wet.

A damp proof membrane between the ground and whatever you floor is will be well worth the effort, DPM can be got at builders' merchants or DIY places reasonably cheaply.

If there's any sort of damp issue in the shed, ensure very good ventilation so it can at least dry out with the breeze, especially think about ventilation for the corners where damp can persist.

when you say its double thick brick, does it have a cavity down the middle? i say this as if its a garden wall, then i wouldnt have thought there would be a cavity, meaning that if the wall gets wet, the moisture is drawn into the brick. normally then it would run down the cavity and out some nice weep holes back to the outside. in this situation i think the 2 skins of brick actually touch each other, so when it rains/gets wet on the outside (eg your neighbours side/garden) the moisture is drawn into the wall which comes through into your side because wet/damp draws towards warm/dry.

hope this makes some sense, i think as has been suggested the only option would be to seal the inside of your side of the wall, so the moisture cant get through to your side. unless you wish to tear the wall down and put up a proper double skinned wall with a cavity and dpm with weep holes leading back out to your neighbours side!

If its outside, and has no form of heating at all... it will always get damp in there.. you need some heat to drive the moisture out. It happens in houses.. you leave a house empty and cold long enough, the moisture will start to come through... after a while, you wont be able to stop it without spending a few quid.. as for an outside wall, you want to cuprinol the hell out of it, then possibly give it a few coats of paint as well... wont stop the moisture, but it'll curb most of it.. not forgetting you will get moisture coming up through the floor as well...

as said.. it's down to how much money you want to spend.

You could offer to render the wall on your neighbours side then paint it with a good paint, that would deflect a lot of the moisture.
But as someone as said, with no heating and no insulation, cold condensation, damp etc are always gonna be ever present.

Other option, stud the wall with dpm behind it with at least 25mm depth away from wall, then insulate.
Would make working in there more pleasant as well.
phil

Thank's for the repies fellas. The wall has no cavity, it's just an old garden wall. I don't intend to heat the shed so I might end up doing as you suggest and sealing it the best I can. I might do as Specialone suggests and stud it. There's no point in spending money building a shed to put up with it being damp. The concrete floor has a DPM so other than this old wall, there's no source of damp. It's quite possible that it could be condensation as it's been very warm and humid here today and the front of the shed has a 2.6 metre opening where the doors are going, so all that warm damp air has been free to get inside. I don't think I'll do anything until the doors are on.

[Littlepeahead]

I'll ask the other half. He's a bricklayer and might be able to offer some advice.

I check the wall today and it is dry. That makes me think that as Embee suggested, it could have been condesation. If moisture had been coming through the brickwork, I don't think it would have dried out so fast. I think I'll just keep an eye on it for the moment, but having said that, sealing it with something would do any harm.