Rasing damp & Damp course

[spoonylucy]

We have just had a survey carried out on the house we are purchasing and it was noted that the property had raising damp in a number of places. We have had a preservation specialist also out to inspect and quote for the work to be carried out.

Half the property is 300 years old and half is 100 years old, made of random stone construction pebble dash rendered.

The property has been empty for 1 year.

They are saying the rainwater goods to the front elevation were found to be allowing water ingress.

Two of the ground floor windows revealed evidence of decay and allowing water to ingress.

Various walls to the ground floor were noted to be dry lined and moisture levels to finished plaster surfaces were found to be acceptable.

They are suggesting the insertion of an electro Osmotic type treatment all round the kitchen walls (part of 300 year part) and half of the front of the (100 year part). Also saying partial structural water proofing required against lateral damp.

They have quoted £3464 to carry out the work which includes removal and refixing of kitchen, radiators and re plastering the area removed.

Do I really need to have this done as it seems very expensive?

Any help appreciated as this is our first home which does require a lot of work. (Over 15 Yorkshire sash to have repaired or replaced) we are trying to keep some of the cost down unless necessary.

 

[vicky whitworth]

My thoughts would be - DON'T DO IT!
My understanding is that damp proof insertions don't work at all well on random rubble stone walls and so are a waste of money. Spend the money (probably considerably less) on making your house breath again in the way it was designed. The book that convinced me this was the way to go is called Precious Inheritance. It's just a little book but my very favourite with excellent, clear illustrations. Mend the rainwater goods. You might have to remove the cement render. Learn to love a bit of damp. Old houses tend to have a bit of damp but it won't kill you - probably

 

[Pford75]

The property has been empty for 1 year.

They are saying the rainwater goods to the front elevation were found to be allowing water ingress.

Two of the ground floor windows revealed evidence of decay and allowing water to ingress.

Various walls to the ground floor were noted to be dry lined and moisture levels to finished plaster surfaces were found to be acceptable.

I certainly wouldn't do it. Any house which has been left empty for a year is bound to have some damp.

I would fix the rainwater goods as a priority. Depending on the state of the windows, I would seek to repair these (rather than replace). I would then move in and enjoy my home! Open the windows, ventilate and in the autumn switch the heating on.

 

[Matt Green]

We have had a preservation specialist also out to inspect and quote for the work to be carried out.

Who? Name names. Are they independent, or did that stand to benefit from a distressing survey report? It sounds like a lot of money to change a situation that isn't causing a problem. As previously said, spend the money on maintenance rather than 'remediation'.

Various walls to the ground floor were noted to be dry lined and moisture levels to finished plaster surfaces were found to be acceptable.

Yup, that's why folks dry line walls.

 

[MdB]

As others have said - Don't.

Let me guess that the "preservation specialist" didn't charge for the visit? (To get good advice you need to pay somebody independent that doesn't get paid commission.)

Having said that, there is some useful stuff in what you have been told:

They are saying the rainwater goods to the front elevation were found to be allowing water ingress.

Something to be fixed ASAP.

Also saying partial structural water proofing required against lateral damp.

That implies that the ground levels outside are higher than those inside. This is a common problem, is easy for you to check and needs to be sorted - which might be not so easy to do. Ideally outside should be 200mm+ lower than inside and there are various options on how to do this.

Also have a read of the damp FAQ. http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6777

 

[JoceAndChris]

Just to echo the others' really kind and expert comments - I wouldn't waste your money here. We were advised the same thing, we didn't do it, the house is fine. (though it could do with some removal of concrete outside and leaky rainwater system)

Try to fix your other problems first, live there a couple of years, and see how the house dries out.

 

[Flyfisher]

Welcome to the forum. It sounds like you have exciting times ahead. I can also only echo the earlier comments; sorry if it's becoming a bit boring.

The property has been empty for 1 year.

They are saying the rainwater goods to the front elevation were found to be allowing water ingress.

Two of the ground floor windows revealed evidence of decay and allowing water to ingress.

Various walls to the ground floor were noted to be dry lined and moisture levels to finished plaster surfaces were found to be acceptable.

Hmm. Empty for one year and with rainwater goods and windows allowing water ingress. What chance has the poor house got against all that!

Seems to me that the first priority must be to fix these problems (and any other ones that actively allow water to enter the house) and then give the house some time to dry out. An oft quoted time is one month per inch-thickness of wall, though this will be quite variable depending on contruction and prevailing weather conditions, but it shows that the house isn't likely to dry out over the weekend!

Our house had similar problems, together with a roof that was badly leaking in a number of places. Having fixed the roof, and the guttering , unblocked the downpipes, fixed/replaced the soakaways so that all water was properly carried away from the base of the walls, and allowing the house a couple of years to restabilise, it no longer has that damp feeling. Indeed, we had some electrical work done last month and the electrician (who had done some other work a couple of years ago) specifically remarked that the house felt much warmer and drier. It no longer has that cool, clammy feel - even in the summer months.

The good news is that the summer months will help with the drying out process. Good ventilation is the enemy of damp. Throw open the doors and windows to allow air to freely circulate whenever possible - this will remove loads of moisture and the house will gently dry out, which will be far better for it than suddenly sucking out every last bit of moisture and expecting it to adapt to new conditions overnight. Live in the house for a year and learn how it 'works' before planning any major, invasive and irreversible works. I'm not saying this will solve every little problem with the house (which we call 'character' ) but I'd be confident it will solve a lot of them and isolate the few remaining so that you can focus your efforts (and money) on those alone. You may even find that you can comfortably live with them.

Take your time, fix the actual problems, and work with the house, not against it.

 

[MatthewC]

Hello and welcome. I'll add my support to all of the previous comments. I have actually demonstrated much of the practical advice given above in my house since we first saw it last August. This house had been neglected for many years and was VERY damp with holes in the ceilings and slate roof, splits in lead flashings, plaster falling off the damp mouldy walls, 2 or 3 feet of cement tanking up the ground floor walls, ivy etc blocking the gutters, blocked drains, holes in downpipes and higher ground outside than the floor level. We started tackling the water ingress at the top and worked down, and the only thing left now is the high ground (although I have dug away from the walls where possible). See my blog (start last year!) for more details of what we had, plus lots of pictures.

I'll bet that the quote you had did not specify lime plaster!

Matthew
http://houseintheenchantedforest.blogspot.com/

 

[spoonylucy]

Hi All

Thanks for all the advice, First I am going to purchase that little book and look for others to help us alone. I was so excited when I found this site, had an extremeley late night the other night as just could not remove my self. LOL

This is are first home and so want to try and do it right and keep all of the charm that made us fall in love with it. It just needs love.

I am going to also trail through some of the links you have put on. By the way the company did not charge to come out and thier moto is preserve heritage.

We want to ensure we get the outside right first, so will be replacing all of the guttering and will look at seeing if we can put another down pipe in as i think there is only one and the house is about 20m long.

See link below shows pictures of the house.

http://www.vebra.com/lawsons/property/22261850

We also need to remove all the ivy off the house. The surveyer did note that the outside ground level was not lower, so we will get this sorted too.

Can you recommend that best course of action for the outside as it seems a bit mish match. One gable end we can see is coble type stones and one is brick, which i am suprised as the right hand side (two chimney breasts are the old side)

I was thinking that ?getting it maybe blasted back, lime rendered and lime washed.

The walls are about 18 inches thick so I guess it will take time to dry out, even thou I could not smell damp when I was in there.

How about the ?dryline plaster inside. Thou I dont really know what this is except what I have googled. How should it be?

All the floors inside on the ground floor are concrete so we where thinking of raising to accomodated underfloor heating as we want to put slate throughout the ground floor. Do you think this would be ok?

Can you tell I am new to this. I can not wait to get the house, just got to sort the complicated title deed out as there are restrictions in it made by the ajecent manor house that use to own it many years ago.

Thanks

Sharon

 

[Flyfisher]

Hi All
We want to ensure we get the outside right first, so will be replacing all of the guttering and will look at seeing if we can put another down pipe in as i think there is only one and the house is about 20m long.

There are various rainwater calculators on the web. I can't remember the one I used (which included an allowance for rainfall characteristics depending on the region of the country) but I quickly found this one: http://www.hunterplastics.co.uk/calculator/ It might give you a rough idea if you need another downpipe.

My calculations showed that our single downpipe would be OK but, in practice, when we have a torrential downpour the guttering overflows (it's always very instructive to don a raincoat and hat and wander around the outside of a house in the rain), so I'll probably have to look at this in due course. However, guttering that works properly 99% of the time is an awful lot better than guttering that leaks rain into the walls 100% of the time!

 

[Keithj]

Agree with all that's written above. Forget techie dampproofing - it was done to this house. When we had proper repairs done, we saw how futile the whole process had been.

Fix the gutters PDQ, get the ivy off, and live in it for a while.
If the ground outside is higher than the house inside, then things need to be done - but don't rush into it.

 

[robgil]

Putting in a DPC is not solving the source of the damp , it is simply hiding the effects of the damp.
As above , fix the cause which will be the guttering etc. No matter how much into heritage a damp proofing specialist says they are they also have to make money and telling you how to sort the problem your self isnt very productive for them.
If you have concrete flooring with a DPM and cement render then this may also not be helping with your damp issues but look at fixing the easy obvious stuff first.

 

[AMc]

All the floors inside on the ground floor are concrete so we where thinking of raising to accomodated underfloor heating as we want to put slate throughout the ground floor. Do you think this would be ok?

In order to fit underfloor heating you will need to insulate under the pipework then lay the flooring on top of a further screed of lime or cement based concrete.
If you don't you'll not meet building regs and you will be pushing your expensive heat into the ground which has a near limitless capacity to swallow heat energy (the power of the sun every day).

You can use electric underfloor heating which is thinner but this is comparatively expensive to run and will still need an insulation layer beneath it.

To get underfloor heating in you would probably have to remove the existing floor and excavate down a substantial way. To give you an idea our floor goes
floorbricks
65mm screed with pipes
100mm ecotherm insulation
100mm oversite concrete
25mm binding sand
150mm consolidated hardcore
That's digging down 44cm+ finished floor surface which is not a trivial task and can't be done while you're living in there.
It will probably mean you need to remove and refit skirting boards, door frames, doors and replaster walls.

Underfloor heating works well in large, well insulated rooms and while you can put it into a period home it is quite a challenge to do.
I'm glad we did, but I wouldn't have retrofitted it in place of radiators had I needed to live in the rooms we did at the time.
At the very least get the system designed by a specialist don't allow a plumber to install a kit of parts based on ready reckoners about the heat capacity of the house or you could end up quite cold and quite poor.