removing damp proofing

[Anonymous]

Whatever "proselytising" means (and that is frankly the best word I've seen today!) I agree. I won't persuade you and you won't persuade me and as I said it doesn't really matter either way.

 

[Matt Green]

If anyone ever comes up with a definition of what rising damp is that all concerned agree upon- then it's worth an argument. Until then, not so much.

 

[Matt Green]

Here's an interesting article from the 'pro' rising damp camp: http://www.dampdecay.co.uk/index.php/articles/494-article-6-rising-damp-the-truth-not-the-myth

"Building Research Establishment positively identified rising damp to a greater or lesser extent in around 80% of the properties they investigated in Cardiff several years ago. "

If anyone can find this research and point to it, I'd love to see it. I've looked for it in British Library searches and asked the BRE for it directly on two occasions. no one one can actually point to a publication though.

 

[Anonymous]

oh and "Peter is a member of the Property Care Association" - clearly stated on his website....soooo a Chemical Damp Proofing association member hmmmm.

 

[plasticpigeon]

I have a pantry wall in my kitchen built without a damp proof course. This was certainly quite damp when I bought the property. However so was the kitchen floor which was quarries on earth. About 5 layers of oil cloth and lino meant no evaporation from the floor so it was wet, along with the ground beneath. To combat the wet wall, the owners had nailed gloss painted hardboard to the wall, but no doubt this exacerbated the problem and the wall was wet behind as there was no evaporation from it. This would suggest it was suffering from rising damp. Surprise surprise the damp proof salesman said I had rising damp and needed the walls injecting and cement plaster putting on up to 1m. In this case, the salesman may have been right (at least on that wall, not on the other dry walls for which with the same diagnosis was given). Certain capillary action does exist. I have no idea how high this will draw water up porous bricks and/or mortar. However I believe the one shoe fits all solution was totally inappropriate, and in my opinion fraudulent. I'm pretty sure this is a country wide industrial scale fraud, not a conspiracy, as the assesment of of damp in old houses almost always follows this train of events with exactly the same requirements for works, or at least in pretty much every case where people I know who have bought old houses. Sometimes this process is recommended even when the walls have been injected and cement rendered already, so what does that tell you?

I put in a limecrete floor and lime plastered that wall. The room is certainly comfortable now. I'm happier with that solution than the injection and cement. It's less destructive, and deals with the problem rather than covers it. If surveyors actually dared to assess timber and damp issues as they bloody well should, and not palm off responsibility to unqualified timber and damp sales people, and if the surveyors recommended period sensitive, sensible, minimally invasive solutions that actually worked, then people may not be so quick to claim that rising damp doesn't exist, as there would be no benefit in doing so.

 

[Zebra]

How about we (each side) cut out the proselytising, agree to differ, and agree that each thread on damp should be dealt with on the facts and merits of the individual case, rather than being an opportunity to highlight our disagreements?

Agreed. Case by case basis. No use of topics to air our own views.
Did we answer the OP's original question? I hope so.

 

[Flyfisher]

Here's an interesting article from the 'pro' rising damp camp: http://www.dampdecay.co.uk/index.php/articles/494-article-6-rising-damp-the-truth-not-the-myth

"Building Research Establishment positively identified rising damp to a greater or lesser extent in around 80% of the properties they investigated in Cardiff several years ago. "

If anyone can find this research and point to it, I'd love to see it. I've looked for it in British Library searches and asked the BRE for it directly on two occasions. no one one can actually point to a publication though.

This, I think, is the right sort of approach to take; chase down the references as would be done with scientific research. Interesting that you had no success with BRE directly. Have you tried contacting the website owner (Peter Macdonald) directly and asking him for a copy of the work he's referencing? After all, he must surely have read the full report himself :wink:

I don't really care if rising damp is real or not - what I'd like to see is some definitive and reproducible research that proves it one way or another.

 

[Matt Green]

This, I think, is the right sort of approach to take; chase down the references as would be done with scientific research. Interesting that you had no success with BRE directly. Have you tried contacting the website owner (Peter Macdonald) directly and asking him for a copy of the work he's referencing? After all, he must surely have read the full report himself :wink:

I don't really care if rising damp is real or not - what I'd like to see is some definitive and reproducible research that proves it one way or another.

The problem is that the research is never published as a direct study, it's as a part of something else, or in a book or some such. So you call up the teh BRE and the conversation goes:

I'd like to buy the publication that includes the rising damp survey in Cardiff
-which publication is that?
I don't know
-I need a publication name
Well, I know you did the work- I just don't know how you published it
-Can you find out and get back to me?
How do I find out?
-I don't know
Can I talk to your technical department?
-No, we are a commercial entity now
I know, I am trying to give you money but you're making it hard
-I can't help you without a name...you could try buying the most likely publication from our online shop....?

It's frustrating.

 

[Flyfisher]

Wow - ridiculously frustrating.

Perhaps Peter Macdonald (the website owner) could supply a copy of the relevant report? He is, after all, quoting it in support of his assertion that rising damp does actually exist. He also states "Serious peer reviewed papers have appeared in scientific building and technical journals for many years in those parts of the world where rising damp has proved to be a problem", so where is his list of those papers? If he's not willing to provide the references he relies on then his assertions are no better than all the other anecdotal stories. To be fair to Peter Macdonald, the information he presents is credited to 'G R Coleman B.Sc.(Hons). M.S.B., C.Biol., M.I.W.Sc., F.Inst.S.S.E.', but the same basic point applies.

As the late Christopher Hitchens once said “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, but but but... He also states that he's a member of the PCA (Property Care Association) which is the trade body for the chemical damp proofing industry.

"Dear Mr Turkey, would you like to vote for or against Christmas......" Turkey: "Well I think on balance and given all this research that I've made sure no one can find and the fact that I quote BSE, RICS, BRICS, BRACS, GMB, ITV, XR3I after my name I think you'll find I'm right that Christmas should not exist"....

 

[Matt Green]

To be fair to Peter Macdonald, the information he presents is credited to 'G R Coleman B.Sc.(Hons). M.S.B., C.Biol., M.I.W.Sc., F.Inst.S.S.E.', but the same basic point applies.

Graham has been banging the same drum for years:

https://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4674&p=51986

You get to the same circular arguments about definitions of 'rising damp' and 'show me the evidence' pretty quickly with him.

 

[malcolm]

Of course you can get rising damp. Stick a porous soft red in water and wait to see if it sucks the water up. Finally proof!

I think the argument that all these people with letters after their name are trying to make is that it is normally not the cause of whatever damp problem people might have. Modern builders have some far more efficient ways to cause damp in old buildings.