Damp Old Houses: Five Things to Check Before Anything Else

August in Hunan runs hot, then wet, then hot again. When the rain settles in for a week, people in older houses start noticing the same things: damp patches at the base of walls, a smell in the wooden cupboard, a floor that has become slippery, moisture near a socket, a watermark on the ceiling.

The question that usually follows is whether the house has a "feng shui problem". My answer is always the same: before you move a single object or form a theory about the building, check for leaks, wiring, drainage and ventilation. A house you can live in safely comes before any question of arrangement.

1. Roof, gutters and outside walls

After sustained rain, look for new watermarks on ceilings and exterior walls. In a rural or older house, check whether tiles have shifted, whether gutters are blocked with leaves, and whether cracks in the render have widened. In an apartment, look around window frames, air-conditioning penetrations and the joints between different wall materials.

The common mistake is to treat the symptom from inside — a coat of paint over the damp patch. Find where the water enters first. Surface treatment buys you one dry week and then the next storm undoes it.

Do not climb onto a wet roof or work near exterior wiring yourself. This is a job for someone insured to do it.

2. Sockets, appliances and the distribution board

Damp and electricity is the one combination that turns a household nuisance into an emergency. If you see watermarks, discolouration, heat, a burning smell or hear arcing near sockets, switches or the fuse box — or if the breaker keeps tripping — stop using the affected circuits and call an electrician.

Do not handle plugs with wet hands. Do not leave power strips on a damp floor. Do not keep using an appliance directly beneath a leak.

In older houses the wiring is often much older than the decoration suggests. It performs fine in dry weather and fails the moment humidity rises. Faults like this do not announce themselves; they simply wait.

3. Kitchen, bathroom and floor drains

These rooms are wet by design, which is exactly why slow leaks hide there. Check under the sink for weeping joints, check that the washing machine hose is still seated, check the floor drain actually drains rather than pooling, and check the threshold of the bathroom for standing water.

Cardboard boxes, plastic bags and dead appliances accumulate under sinks. When a joint finally fails, the leak is invisible, the cardboard holds the moisture, and mould and insects follow — sometimes next to a socket.

Empty the cupboard, dry it out, and put things back by category. Nothing that absorbs water should sit directly on the floor of a wet room.

4. Beside the bed and behind wooden furniture

Old houses go damp in the places nobody looks: the gap between the bed and an exterior wall, the back of a large wardrobe. Air does not move there, and the back panel can be mouldy while the front looks perfect.

Where the weather allows, pull furniture a few centimetres off an external wall and open windows on opposite sides to create cross-flow. When outdoor humidity is very high, do not leave windows wide open for hours; use air-conditioning in dehumidify mode or a proper dehumidifier instead.

My family has worked wood for four generations. My father judged a board not by whether the surface felt dry, but by whether the inside was still moving and whether a split was forming. His rule was that timber suffers most from alternating wet and dry. Cabinets, carved panels, shrine fittings and old chests behave exactly the same way: photograph any insect damage, mould or crack, then decide treatment by material. Do not hose them down.

5. Thresholds, yard walls and drainage around the building

The traditional concern with a house entrance was that it should be clear and orderly. Translated into the present, that means: can water get away from the building, and can people walk in and out safely?

On a ground floor or in a self-built house, check that the drain at the entrance is not blocked, that the base of the yard wall is not permanently wet, and that the ground nearby shows no new cracks, settlement or slipping.

Hunan is still in the flood season in August. If, after heavy rain, doors and windows stop closing properly, walls crack visibly, the ground suddenly sinks, or a hillside starts shedding stones or muddy water, do not interpret it — leave and contact your community committee or the local authority.

A consultation about a house cannot substitute for a structural survey or a geological assessment. Where structure, wiring or slope stability is concerned, the qualified inspection wins.

Traditional house reading, starting from the people inside

Older practice looked at the door, the stove, the bed, the light, the water and the slope of the land. None of that survives translation into a list of objects to place in corners.

What it does translate into is a set of questions I still ask first:

• Where is it wettest?
• When did it start?
• Does it change after rain, after opening a window, or after using a particular appliance?

Record the symptom, the time and the pattern of use before discussing any adjustment. That is more useful than a verdict.

What this is not

Nothing here is a substitute for building inspection, electrical testing or official weather warnings. Traditional house reading is a way of paying attention to how a home is used; it is not a diagnosis and it does not replace professional safety advice.

Written by Mr. Fu, fourth-generation inheritor of the Fu family line and a provincial-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in Hunan.