Water Damage On Interior Walls

achesonj

Customer's interior walls have horizontal brown water damage lines near the bottom on one corner of the house (two walls). The lines are about ten feet long and seem to match up with the vinyl siding, except for two brown lines running vertically beneath a window. The exterior casing around the window is partially rotted, so this is where I initially assumed the moisture was getting in, but the other wall has no window, and the damage looks approximately the same and extends length of the room, about 13 feet from the window around the perimeter. The siding appears to be over-lapped the same amount around the entire house, and as far as I can tell there is no water line in the wall. Anyone have any idea what could be causing this? Could moisture getting in around the window create the same brown line around the entire perimeter of a room?

curapa

Hmm.. I would see if the HO will allow you to remove a few pieces of siding to get a better view of where the water damage is coming from. Maybe the vertical lines are due to water running down the sides of studs?

A W Smith

Could be rising damp if the location is at a break in a poly vapor barrier between a furred masonry stem wall and a knee wall on top of it.

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Al Smith
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Tom M

Is this house on a slab?---Horizontal brown water lines? Horizontal? Do you have hot water baseboard heat?

Frankawitz

Any chance of you getting a picture? You said the water lines are on just two walls? and then say the perimeter of the room. Well there are two things that could have happened, one the house was flooded and what your seeing is the high water mark or two you have a roof leak or plumbing leak that is above the high part of the water mark, as for water coming in around the window it would not have gone around the room or even the lenght of the wall, the framing would have changed the direction of the water, I would say the house was flooded.

Putty Truck

Sure now, blame the plumber. That's what it always comes down to, doesn't it?

boman47k

Had a similar situation once, except the line was about halfway up the bath wall. This bath was on the interior of the house ( no exterior wall). I do suspect one wall may have been an exterior years before. I thought maybe it had something to do with a leak from some flashing and the firebelt ( what it is called here) around the wall. Tried to oil prime it and paint it. GUy I was working with at the time said it came back. I still do not know what was happening. Hair spray has been mentioned, but not sure that would settle half way down the wall. Maybe I should have tried a shellac based primer.