Thread: Lining single brick garage wall to stop moisture

Wow, this is déjà vu. You posted the same question last year, see lining brick walls to prevent rust

Originally Posted by richmond68

Wow, this is déjà vu. You posted the same question last year, see lining brick walls to prevent rust

Hahahaha I bloody thought I'd posted it before but I couldn't find the post. ��

Right time to actually get this done.

I'm thinking I might coat it with bondcrete then foil line the battens, then plywood.

I have benches attached to the walls and cupboards bolted above them so I can't do the entire wall, just the wall from the top of the bench to the start of the cupboards. Hopefully it will improve things.

No good coating or lining the inside of the bricks, you need to stop the water coming on the outside.

Normal thing to do is applying a silicone water repellent to the outside of the bricks.

https://www.bunnings.com.au/crommeli...ealer_p0960095

Other manufacturers make similar products, eg Digers, Solver Paints etc.

If you try to stop the water from the inside, even if you are somewhat successful the bricks will be saturated with moisture and the water vapour will still get through.

The outside is rendered and belongs to the neighbor so I'm not able to do anything about it.

Build a stud wall inside creating a cavity of min 40mm between the frame and bricks, use H3 timber to keep the nasty termites at bay and then line the wall with your preferred budget allowable sheeting, make sure you put vents top and bottom of wall to allow circulation of air otherwise it will sweat and you will have an even bigger problem.

Originally Posted by rwbuild

Build a stud wall inside creating a cavity of min 40mm between the frame and bricks, use H3 timber to keep the nasty termites at bay and then line the wall with your preferred budget allowable sheeting, make sure you put vents top and bottom of wall to allow circulation of air otherwise it will sweat and you will have an even bigger problem.

Is it worth lining the wall with the foil sarking? Or is that a waste of time/money?

Yes it is worth putting in sarking, it will limit the moisture take up in whatever timber you use. If you do what rw suggests and build a stud wall the sarking creates an insulating air gap between it and the brickwork. Put some batts in the stud wall as well if you can stretch to it or pick up used ones for free - besides the comfort factor and noise insulation it reduces the air volume in the wall cavity, which reduces the amount of moisture it will hold.

As for the timber, it doesn't all need to be h3. It's internal, h2 is sufficient. The bottom plate should be h3 to protect against rot because there's no recessed slab edge, but the rest is fine in h2 as it stays dry. It still tastes as bad to termites and is cheaper.

Excluding water/moisture is a tricky business. You can coax and encourage water to do what you want, most of the time, but at the end of the day it will do at IT pleases.

My approach would be a 40mm metal batten on the wall. set the bottom batten 50 or so off the floor. top batten 50 or so from the ceiling. Sarking from the top batten to the bottom batten. Line with ply ensuring ply is 10 - 15mm off the floor and 10-15mm short of the ceiling. The room may still be quite high in humidity unless you can ventilate the room properly.

There are ways of waterproofing the inside with Bentonite clay but it is expensive, a specialist application, and sometimes does not work.

I would first be looking at ways of ventilating the room. Simple measures like a small fan directed toward an opening can help enormously.

Cheers

Instead of marking, what about Foildboard? Very easy to cut ( foil covered styrofoam sheet)

Can place this between or on the battens, then line with whatever ( OSB...)

Have used this on a mates shed, and will be lining my build with it in the next couple of months.

Products - Foilboard Insulation

In the end though, shame to lose the visual appeal of a brick wall

The original post did state it was behind the benches and tools against the walls, so a framed board backed by Foilboard seems quite straightforward, or vertical battens, foil board between, then french cleats.
The foil board can be cut neatly with a stanley knife, squeeze fit between the battens

Use ALL H3, H2 is very hit and miss in its treatment and has proved in the past to be only 40% effective.
Definitely use sarking, wall breathable as recommended

As said above ventilation is the key issue, it is not moisture entering that is the problem it is airborne moisture laying around, I have many different so called solutions to stop moisture and the resultant rust and the most effective by a long margin is powered ventilation with incorporated moisture trap

Originally Posted by rwbuild

Use ALL H3, H2 is very hit and miss in its treatment and has proved in the past to be only 40% effective.

The TWAA have been fighting against the myths for years, yet still they persist. First myth is that H3 offers better protection against termites. It doesn't. The H grading is for exposure durability not termite protection. With H3 it will most likely be CCA or ACQ treated (don't see much LOSP), with a penetration of about 5mm. It doesn't stop termites attacking it. ACQ is undetectable to termites, if they eat enough of it it'll kill the colony but it doesn't deter them from attacking the timber. CCA fares a bit better.

Second myth is termites will attack H2 but not H3. Well, not all H2 are the same. With H2-F, synthetic pyrethroids like bifenthrin are commonly used - the same chemical used for perimeter and under slab treatment. Yes, it's only 2mm penetration, but termites can detect bifenthrin and avoid it. For that reason alone I would use H2-F for internal framing rather than H3.

Either way, if they find a pathway around the treatment, like an unprotected end grain cut, they can still attack it.

Originally Posted by Dazm

The outside is rendered and belongs to the neighbor so I'm not able to do anything about it.

Does your neighbour hate you? If not, a quick conversation may allow you to apply a sealer on the render on their side. It shouldn't change the look of the render, and should get you a proper solution to keeping the moisture out. If your neighbour does hate you, then I suggest putting a sealer on the inside of the wall. The wall will still get wet, but at least it won't come right through.

If you put any new surface on the inside of the wall without stopping the moisture (inside or out), you could end up with big mould problems between the wall and the new surface, and it will smell.