OK....thought I'd gather up a few photos across the board.
This was the last bedroom upstairs and the one of most concern as the plaster had blown significantly in one corner with obvious signs of damp. Not surprising considering the state of the water tables (now fixed as previously posted). When we removed the plasterboard on the external walls, we found it saturated as well as the manky fibre-glass insulation. The photo doesn't really do justice to the amount of water.
At least it wasn't as bad as this wall in another property we looked at !
My builder had an industrial-size dehumidifier and we ran it for a week pulling out about 60 litres a day
That brought it down to a level whereby my proposal for Phase 2 drying seemed do-able. There will be an open fire in the room below. In other rooms upstairs, I got them to plug the gaps at the top of the walls behind the studding with old fibreglass but for this bedroom I'm keeping them open. Downstairs, on either side of the fireplace, I will cut apertures in the wall/Kingspan covered with Hit'n'Miss type vents. So as the fire burns, it will draw a stream of air down behind the studwall/Kingspan thus gradually drying out the remaining dampness in the wall.
The green dehumidifier is just in shot left of frame here. And another original Georgian fireplace.
I think that they were running out of time/budget by this point as the studding left a lot to be desired and a lot of the dwangs were either non-existent or dodgy. Many of the studs were out of alignment and needed pushing or pulling into the right position and fixing with metal brackets top the wall behind. This is where all the time and money has gone....prepping each room before they even start to plaster.
And, of course, not forgetting the previous owners ghastly colour scheme.
A different approach to this wall. A lot of the internal walls had very flexible studding. Also the joins between the plasterboards didn't always sit on a dwang and so the plaster had cracked down the join. Up until this point, I'd bought into the recommendation to overboard but since another plasterer had pointed out that the original walls could just as easily be improved by using lots of screws into the studding then there really was no need to overboard.
Now why didn't I hear about this at the start ? The real reason is that the plasterers find it much easier to plaster on virgin plasterboard rather than a blue-gritted' wall.
This was also a milestone (achieved about a month ago) when the last piece of scaffolding came down in the hall.
More to come another day.
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.