Anyone heard of these damp proofing co's?

[Lindyboo]

As it is post-flood they might be inclined to go for a tanking/drainage solution using Delta membrane or Sika render. Hygroscopic testing of core samples to determine if the water in the walls is from the flooding or from the ground would be ideal but unlikely. If it were me I knew there was history of flooding and insurers were involved I would have ruled out DPCs quite firmly to differentiate myself from any other companies involved and gone in with a robust spec for tanking the affected rooms. It's mid-month so I've got an eye on my monthly sales target (oh yes...) but November and December are very slow months for building work so I would have been inclined to risk a bigger spec job with a longer time frame over a cheap quote.

Oh dear. Well, forewarned is forearmed as they say. I'll post again when they've gone.
Thanks

 

[xanthe]

Have been avidly reading the Period Property Manual, and they say in there that walls that have been subjected to flooding or long-term severe water ingress of other types can take well over a year to dry out completely. So it may just be the case that you have a long wait ahead rather than a need for any remedial works of the dpc variety.

 

[Keithj]

That sounds right. The wall in the church that had been damp for over 50 years is starting to dry out, a year after Mike found where the water was coming from and stopped it. We still get pretty patterns on the limewash, but it'll get another few coats next spring and hopefully that will stay "plain".

One of the churchwardens got a "man" in to look at the damp. He recommended tanking the wall. I vetoed that. The wall was wetter at the top than the bottom, which seemed an interesting sort of rising damp.

 

[Lindyboo]

Due to a mix up over dates Peter Cox won’t be descending upon us until next month but in the meantime I’ve noticed since the drying equipment was removed 2 weeks ago that matters seem to be slowly improving.

The worst affected area is a corner room where the flood water entered and was a couple of inches deep. The concrete floor is ruined (top shelling off and crumbling beneath) and must be replaced. Aside from that, the wet areas which had gone up the walls in other rooms, including internal ones remote from the flood entry, have subsided. We’ve had a couple of terrific rainstorms here over the last few days and I feared the damp would reappear but so far the drying seems to be continuing.

All of which supports the points made in the previous couple of postings and elsewhere.

 

[Flyfisher]

Just to add to my previous post about our flooded utility room, although it took a few weeks to dry out nothing seemed to happen for a long time and then it appeared to 'suddenly' dry out over a few days. I assume this was because the visible surface water was constantly replaced as it evaporated from the surface until there was eventually nothing left to replace it and the surface finally dried out.

 

[xanthe]

If the concrete floor needs to be replaced, have a look at limecrete floors - they'd probably help with drying the house out long-term,