# Forum Forum Help Desk Introduce Yourself  bought a semi detatched house in sydney inner west

## richo73

Hi my name is Lea,
Great forum!, 
I bought a semi detatched house last year in sydney inner west with all the plans for renovating same. 
In the last year 2 large problems have raised its ugly head 
1) a problem with the drainage at the side of my house. The previous owner laid bricks for paving over dirt. With the drainage pipes running along the side of the house. 
The paving has become all undulated and the water is running toward the house. It has been suggested to concrete at an angle so that the water falls awy from the house. 
Will definitely not be able to do myself. 
Who do I call, is it concreters or landscapers?
What costs am I looking at? the side of the house is about 20 metres long
I am also going to put a new fence in on that side. Is it best to do the footpath first? 
2) The plastering on the interior walls are all crumbly. I took the old wallpaper off, and chunks of plaster came off too. I had quotes from construction guys that said that they could chip away at it to get it back to the brick , but its a massive never ending job. Not too keen on spending alot of money.
Another suggetion was to put gyprock, but not keen as then have to take off skirting boards and that means more problems. I also think around the cronices it won't look great. just want to get it up to scratch for renting out. Is it good enough to wallpaper over?
3) The ceiling is about 100 year old and actually sags inwards like a dome shape from previous water damage. The previous owners put a new tin roof on. And new floor boards which are nice.  
Any suggestions on what to do with the side of the house? Who to call?
And any suggestions on whether to just wallpaper the walls. What to fill up the holes with? 
Thanks, Look forward to hearing your responses
Lea

----------


## Black Cat

The walls - you can get heavy grade wall paper that you can paint over - not sure what it is called. It can be either embossed or not. My advice? Don't touch anything else till you get a good DIY book and have done some of those Saturday morning courses at Bunnings.  
As for down the side - first work out where the water comes from, then get rid of it. Paving over the problem will not make it go away.

----------


## Black Cat

Re-reading the issue of the side wall - sounds like you will need to pull up all the bricks (something you can do yourself), then dig down about 150mm, fill with something porous like crusher dust or similar, then re-lay the bricks with a slight camber away from the house. Make sure you do not raise the soil level above the damp course (if indeed you have one - you have not given the age of the building). If there is no damp course there should at least be ventilation bricks which must be kept above ground level to ensure subfloor ventilation.

----------

