Damp Cupboard, Old House

[justindelucia]

Hoping for some advice on a damp old cupboard in the living room of our very old, very exposed Welsh farmhouse!

The Background
The cupboard sits on the exterior wall on one side (the side will the large hole in it). Concrete floor. The walls are typical of an old farmhouse, very thick, presumably solid stone, so I'm guessing we get moisture coming through possibly. We want to ideally start using the cupboard for stuff that could get damaged from damp (camping gear) and are wondering whether anyone can make a recommendation on approach.

The Plan
I was planning on filling the hole which leads outside with expanding foam, for lack of a better idea and leaving the earth cable going through. I wondered if there was any kind of tanking paint or something I should pain the cupboard in to reduce likelihood of damp coming in. Then was going to possibly build a false floor so that anything that goes in here is not straight onto the concrete and it allows the floor to breathe perhaps. Then potentially ensure that the cupboard doors have some level of ventilation.

Does anyone have any advice on this and the approach and and product recommendations before I get too far with it?

[justindelucia]

IMG_4254.JPG (36.02 KiB) Viewed 1461 times

[dewaltdisney]

Is an old boiler cupboard? It looks like a redundant flue hole and terminated gas and electric feeds. What is that Earth cable doing it might be redundant also.

The first thing is to make good the hole and although you can do it with foam I would get a bag of mortar mix and also some broken brick bits and build up and fill with the brick bits and mortar. Get the outside face smoothed off nicely. Because the walls appear not to have a cavity I would dry line it. See this video for an idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYTbMi2Jgfk you need some thermal barrier to keep it warm and dry plus some vent holes in the door.

All easily done

DWD

[justindelucia]

Thanks so much DWD, really helpful advice. I'll do that and watch the video!

Yeah, to the left of the cupboard is a fireplace where we're going to install a woodburner, but what you see are the remnants of an old oil burner stove and the pipework taking the kerosene from outside to the stove. There were two earths, but one was only for the stove, which I've removed. The other is connected to our consumer unit, so I'm leaving that in place!