Efflorescence - salt crystals on the walls...

I kept noticing these formations on the rising damp of the kitchen wall after the flood. I searched 'white mould on damp wall'.

I was surprised when I read a possible explanation :

In chemistry, efflorescence (which means "to flower out" in French) is the migration of a salt to the surface of a porous material, where it forms a coating. The essential process involves the dissolving of an internally held salt in water, or occasionally in another solvent. The water, with the salt now held in solution, migrates to the surface, then evaporates, leaving a coating of the salt.
Source

My photos were not that clear this evening. I will try to take more photos during the day and see how much it expands. It is definitely worrying and unsightly to see it, but at least it's not mould... we've got enough of that to deal with elsewhere.

Of course I also looked at whether one could eradicate it completely. I found this website where it says that waterproofing is really the answer, but you can also just :

brush off the salt from the surface. Depending on the amount of salt, it can sometimes be done with an old paint brush or it may require a stiff scrub brush.

We're not builders or house DIYers so that it's probably the option we'll take; I'll just hoover it until the wall dries up enough and then we'll paint over it.

photos by @cryptocariad

We've got that on one of our walls too @cryptocariad but nothing DIY we have done has gotten rid of it completely so far. It can be managed though. The last thing we tried was putting PVA on the wall which works for a while.

Hope you get yours sorted. 😁

Do you have brick walls, @gillianpearce ? Thanks for the PVA glue tip. I think I'll wait until it's a bit drier and then will investigate that :D

Yep. They are brick with plaster @cryptocariad.

In our case the walls are 60cm thick (or so) stone walls and plaster, @gillianpearce :D

Interesting phenomenon. Hope you get it figured out and under control.

It's expanded today, @steven-patrick ! Luckily the heating is now working so things will hopefully dry soon...

Oh dear, it does look quite bad there isn’t it? Interesting that the salt migrates to the surface. I would brush off the salt too and paint it over. But dampness might bring it back though?

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That's right, @marblely. I'll wait for a few weeks and it will hopefully dry enough to paint over at some point, but as @gillianpearce says it will need 'sealing' with something like PVA...