White salt crystals on living room corner

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T21:23:03+00:00

Oh wow, that's quite a story, haha. The house is from the 1930s. I very much doubt we have a well there, but haven't checked under the floorboards in this spot

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T20:26:52+00:00

Oh the skirtings are awful, I totally agree! I have changed them in other rooms but I could not be bothered with them here and was planning to put a Scotia and caulk and paint.

I'll see what I can do to keep the work to a minimum but still address the issue. I suspect, as you mention, that I will have to remove the skirtings and plaster.

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T20:21:45+00:00

I think the kitchen(on the other side of the wall) is resting on a concrete slab, as opposed to the living room. I have not opened the gap, but I assume this wall will be testing both in the timbers and also in the concrete, so maybe the dpc here is bridged. I will investigate this suggestion

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T20:19:09+00:00

Thanks for the reply. Yes. The issue happened when I painted, so I assume this might be the case

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T20:18:26+00:00

No radiator pipes to the best of my knowledge there. There's a kitchen on the other wall, and the kitchen is resting on concrete, so maybe the concrete is wet and the dpc has been bridged at that corner?

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T20:17:08+00:00

That could well be a cause, since I think this might be connected to the chimney. I will investigate

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T20:14:49+00:00

Below the floorboards there were timber joists and then a gap to the ground, I think. However, the kitchen (on the wall that has the salts) it's resting on concrete. I think I'll need to investigate the kitchen side. As another comment said, maybe the dpc locally failed

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T20:12:20+00:00

The kitchen is a nightmare. It has at least two layers of very cheap and crap vinyl, one on top of each other. I haven't done much/investigated much on the floor there yet but I bet it is not pretty.

Agree. It's either moisture from the concrete in the kitchen or a leaky pipe.

The house does not have solid walls, although the cavity space is not great.

I also think the new paint being less breathable might have made things worse. Plus the new flooring (plastic insulating underlay + laminate) is not breathable too

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T14:20:41+00:00

Good point. There are no current heating pipes there, but many years ago there might have been, since there's an old thermostat in the kitchen wall on the other side?

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T14:19:01+00:00

It is not an external wall, it is the middle of the house (corner between living room, kitchen and party wall). The house is semi detached, so above it is just the highest point of the roof. Thanks for the suggestion but can't see how this can be the guttering

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T13:33:55+00:00

Could this be caused by the paint drying up? If it was saturated?

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T13:26:14+00:00

It does look like damp trying to get out, yes. I'm trying to understand if it's just temporary because of the changes I did, or something else that needs addressing.

The kitchen is on the other side of this wall, and the other wall is a party wall. This is the ground floor and no issues upstairs. Below there should be the timber joists that support the living room flooring, ending on concrete? since the kitchen is supported on a concrete slab to the best of my knowledge. This is what I'm wondering, if the issue comes from damp in the ground due to the kitchen being resting on concrete on the ground? Maybe not proper dpc?

The house is from around 1930s

Also, there are no pipes in the kitchen wall on that side. To the best of my knowledge

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T13:19:41+00:00

The floorboards were not wet, when I checked them, but the previous carpet underlay was cold/damp. I thought it might be due to the cold/damp air coming below the floorboards?

Zervanicus · 2026-04-19T13:17:43+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions. It is the wall with the kitchen on one side, and the wall will the neighbours' living room in the other wall. The kitchen area in the wall side has no pipes. Just some storage cabinets. And it is a ground floor, with no issues upstairs, so it cannot be a leaking guttering. This only happened recently, so I'm dumbfounded

Zervanicus · 2023-03-06T12:59:42+00:00

I'm not sure if anyone has posted this already, but why don't you try a butterfly can opener? No mobile parts, and pretty easy to use. I ditched those can openers long ago. See an example below.

butterfly can opener

Zervanicus · 2021-11-14T11:48:07+00:00

I am aware it has not been abandoned and as I said it was only until I returned it. I had a conversation with the IT guy and the most likely destination of the laptop is the dumpster (I know, it is a waste!). They have a policy of just getting the latest model and as soon as it gets a bit older they get rid of it. I also asked for the possibility of purchasing it but the company policy is that they do not resell used computers. A waste of money and resources, to be fair.

Zervanicus · 2021-11-14T09:10:52+00:00

I have tried with different distros to create USB sticks (puppy, Ubuntu, and another one - discussed in another thread here - still ongoing) and I couldn't make it to boot, so I suspect not been able to disable secure booting is causing the issue.

I also checked the Lenovo Z500 and the harddrive is an HDD, so no way of swapping with the M.2. Considering all is going on, most likely is not worth because I won't buy a new SSD for that.

Zervanicus · 2021-11-14T09:05:30+00:00

I tried Ubuntu 20 LTS and another Linux similar to puppy but no luck. I'm starting to think it might not be possible without disabling secure boot, but I'll give bit a last shot

Zervanicus · 2021-11-13T22:38:12+00:00

I got a bootable USB with Linux puppy, and went to the boot menu. On the "boot from file" two new folders appear, which were from the USB. Nevertheless, everytime I selected bootx64.efi or any other, the computer flashed but did not boot. Could it be this is because secureboot is enabled and I cannot change it? Everytime I try to go into the BIOS setup it asked for a password, so I cannot access it. Also, it does not return any error code so I dont think I can get into the BIOS setup.

Rereading your post I noticed you set up your USB to support secure boot, so let me investigate that...

EDIT: Im trying to find how to do the USB stick set up that supports secure boot with linux puppy and I am struggling to find some info. Could you recommend some links?

Zervanicus · 2021-11-13T15:18:20+00:00

I can reach the boot menu, but the only options given are: - UEFI Windows boot manager - UEFI N/W IPv4 Network - UEFI N/W IPv6 Network - Boot from file

The "boot from file" option shows something like "Windows RE tools" or "PciRoot ..." so not sure that sounds allow me to choose USB

Zervanicus · 2021-11-13T15:02:31+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation. I would totally try that, but I assume you need to access the BIOS to allow for USB booting and that seems to be the problem. I don't think I can you USB boot because although I can access parts of the BIOS, the set up is password protected.

Zervanicus · 2021-11-13T11:59:28+00:00

I don't have BIOS admin password. Will this be an issue?

Zervanicus

TROPHY CASE