Friday 5th:
About 4 weeks ago, I noticed a small amount of staining on some fresh paint, and it was adjacent to a wall that had badly blown wallpaper which was quite a way down on my list as it was the upstairs hallway and the decoration of this was way off.
The last week or so the mark had been bugging me, and looking at the ceiling above the wallpaper I noticed staining on this as well. I had 30 minutes spare last night so I thought I would just grab the scraper and remove the top coat of paper to at least get a feel for the state of the plaster.
True to form this turned into a voyage of discovery as the plaster was compromised and came off easy using just the scraper and unearthed the original stone structure inner wall. This (as was the plaster) has areas which were wet and blackened with mould and it was obvious this was not a recent water ingress but has been happening for a long time. Digging upwards exposed some wooden strips, I suspect from the loft cavity was rotten so stripping back a good area and having a llok in the loft was going to be the call of the day.
I took the opportunity to have a look at the roof and noticed that if you drew a line through the marking on the picture and the one in my bedroom behind it, it followed the valley on the roof so I suspect that the valley has become compromised allowing water into the loft and then following a fall line to this point in the wall.
I am going to pop up in the loft tomorrow to take a look at any potential damage that needs to be considered in there but I am hoping that the main fix will be just to get the valley repaired or at worse replaced and then strip the inside back, let everything dry out, monitor it for a while then make good, Its better to do it now whilst I am younger and have the capital in the budget then leave it to get worse in my ageing years!
Update: following day
Luckily I had ordered a new step ladder to get into the loft and it arrived today so I was able to pop up their safely and have a look. What a voyage of discovery to see the loft layout of an old house! Anyway the good news is that the felt looks in really good condition and chatting to my neighbour he confirmed that the previous owner had the roof stripped and re-felted although he could not remember when. He also said that the previous owner had a roofing company out to fix the same area somewhere between 3 -5 years ago so I suspect the original compromised plaster was never stripped back and the fault was not treated properly.
The key things I was looking out for was any easy visible signs of long term damage caused by water ingress, any visible light and any signs of the natural water run. Whilst I was was not able to see anything serious their was signs of what could be a natural fall line for water and it did align to the valley area so hopefully when the roofer comes out next week to inspect, assess and price it up it should be relatively good news.