Cave - hole in the wall

The cave, despite a lot of ventilation (see past blog entries), remains damp-ish, though it has improved a lot.

In the past various layers of plaster, cement and stuff were smeared on the cave walls in efforts to keep damp out. But, that simply doesn't work. Damp enters an underground room because it is sort of an underground "vacuum". There is pressure from the surrounding soil and water, even if there's very little water. Normally there's very little water here, but there are days... Anyway, an underground cave will attract moisture. Smearing the walls on the inside will not help, the walls will get damp. Especially if they are made of permeable lime mortar and (worse) gypsum, and stones.

If you want moisture not to enter a cave you need to waterproof the outside of those walls. Well, we're 200 years too late for that.

So, we had a cave with wet layers of rubbish that were gradually powdering, and covering everything inside with a layer of powdered gypsum. Our constructor offered to take the pasters off and out. Yes, please!

And so it happened.

A few surprises, which is not surprising of course.

1. There is a level row of flat stones in all walls at about 1 meter height. Probably the walls were built up to that level first, then a wooden construction was put on top of that to build the arches of the cave ceiling, in parts.

2a. There's a large hole up in the ceiling to the kitchen floor. I always wondered how and where they transferred the energy generated up to the mill stones that were on the ground floor. Well, probably here. One vertical wheel in this cellar, another one upstairs, with a drive belt in between.

2b. Extra surprising is that they covered it up, Anstey style, with some wooden slats, some chicken mesh, cement bags (the paper bags, not the cement), plastic bags, and plaster. Though, knowing the style of the previous owner(s), not a very big surprise after all. Under the ground floor some iron reinforcement was placed, covered with plastic, and concrete poured on top, which is now the floor under two kitchen cabinets. The reinforcement bars themselves were not covered with cement. Why would you?

3. At the back, there's a wooden beam in the wall above the rectangular hole in the back wall. No idea. The beam looks fine. (Another surprise!)

Anyway, with the plaster now off, and ventilation not yet on, the air quality has improved a lot already. For the first time the cellar smells fresh!

Argh!