Victorian House - Damp Report

[Vicsteve]

I am in the process of buying a Victorian Terraced House. I have just had a report back on an existing damp problem. The walls are damp in both the rear bedroom and dining room below.

They reccomended a Damp Proof course injection and the application of Triton 40 Epoxy resin to the original quarry tiled floors in the kitchen and dining room, plus the usual replastering etc and repointing of a small section of wall below the kitchen window.

I wanted to know if it was possible to apply the resin myself and where I could purchase this.

 

[Nemesis]

I'd find another surveyor who can tell you what's causing the damp, and how to cure it.

And the resin will spoil the tiles.

 

[Gervase]

There's a good article on damp at the Building Conservation site which should help. There's also the Damp FAQ thread on this forum.
Damp in upstairs rooms is often the result of faulty guttering or leaking downpipes, while ground-floor damp can be down to a number of causes, most of them solvable without recourse to unsuitable treatments.
It sounds as though you've been fobbed off with a bog-standard tick-box survey via a mortgage company. They are worse than useless, and will often recommend treatments that are detrimental to the building.

 

[NT]

Sounds like typical inappropriate advice to me Steve. Its all too common unfortunately.

The first step is to determine whether you have a damp problem. A statement that you do in a survey isnt worth anything tbh, something a lot of people have a hard time accepting. What if any signs of a damp problem are there in the house?


NT

 

[Vicsteve]

The survey was commissioned from a specialist company called Britannia Preservation who are supposedly specialists in damp prevetion and cure.

They want a whopping 2k which include £500 for stripping and replastering half of 1 wall (about 1 metre high and 9 feet across) and another wall about 9ft by 11ft (ish) which is extortionate, £110 for repoiting about 20 bricks, £650 for the trimol coating to the floor and £445 for damp proof course injections, and £220 for 'overhauling' the guttering.

The damp is mainly concentrated on the rear wall of bedroom 2 and there is damp on the bottom of the dining room directly below the window (which made me think of the repointing) but then it follows copper pipes up the wall which made me think otherwise.

He also reckons he can detect damp through the quarry tiled floor but there was no evidence of that visible and he claims the front needs damp proofing but again there is no evidence of damp there.

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[Nemesis]

No, they are salesmen who will are only interested in flogging you the product they sell.

I bet the damp was 'diagnosed' by using a hand held meter, and that no-one accurately diagnosed the cause of any damp.

If it doesn't look damp it possibly isn't.

If it does, it can possibly be cured without all the expense and disruption stated in the report.

I bet the repointing is in cement, which will not be good for the building.

If the guttering is leaking then yes there will be damp, which will dry out once that's fixed. If the pointing is dodgy, then that could be letting in water.

It could also be that any visible damp is condensation.

Has the house been empty, is it heated at all?

And if you look carefully, depending on the age of the house, you may find it already has a slate or similar DPC.

 

[Vicsteve]

The house has been vacant for a while.

The damp was detected with a damp meter.

Im not sure what form the repointing will take but I am aware it should not be cement which is used due to the sealing in of moisture etc.

They say they cant find a damp course under the extension but this was built in the last 40 years or so.

 

[MdB]

Two prong damp meters do not detect damp. They detect low resistance which may or may not indicate damp.

If it is damp, it is not necessarily going to be rising damp.

If it is rising damp, an injected DPC is not necessarily the right course of action.

Unfortunately, someone that sells injected DPCs will gloss over the above.

Read the damp FAQ and save your self a lot of money.

(Every builder / people who think they know about building have suggested injected DPC for my old damp walls. I would love to see this tried as the stone would just explode as it is so weak. Only one person pointed out the high ground level on the other side of the wall which has a lot more to do with the problem (now sorted).)

Oh and my 45 year old extension doesn't have a DPM either.

 

[Nemesis]

I appreciate that not all have DPC's - but it's worth checking!

DPC's were a legal requirement from late 19th c, although as with everything there will be exceptions, especially in rural ares and where things like extensions are concerned.

Surprising how many damp proofing salespeople overlook an existing DPC though.

 

[Gervase]

The survey was commissioned from a specialist company called Britannia Preservation who are supposedly specialists in damp prevetion and cure.

Nuff said! If you commissioned a survey from an exorcist I'd guarantee they'd tell you the house was haunted and that you should use their specialist services.
Seriously, 'free' surveys from damp companies are designed purely to generate business by terrifying the householder. They use a whole range of dubious 'diagnostic techniques' in a bid to convince you that the only way to stop your house from drowning is to engage their expertise at exorbitant cost.
I'm willing to bet that you can solve any damp that's there for a tenth of that quote.

 

[MdB]

DPC's were a legal requirement from late 19th c, ...

Cornwall hasn't reached the early 19th C yet... I sometimes think I live in a time warp.

 

[Matt Green]

Is this Britannia Preservation based in the Midlands (Northampton)?

They are not members of the BWPDA (and you don't even want to KNOW what you have to do to be thrown out of or not let into that organisation). A company trading by that or a similar name also cold-called my old house whilst we were on the telephone preference list. They apparently had a surveyor in the area and would we like a free appraisal...?

We reported them to Trading Standards.

Get an independent company to conduct an invasive test on the wall to tell you if is damp and what the source of the water is likely to be.


Matt Green

 

[Raylea]

Hi
Having been in your positon and faced with all the above I know how your feeling and what your thinking, well here goes we had that work done that you have been told is needed, why some shout well because we were idiots and were conned into unnecessary work not needed. We had some walls not all done and if these damp meters work then all our walls click like the clappers even the cement walls. The walls not done show no signs of damp nor did the ones done show any before. Still we had just moved in and we had never lived in a very old house some parts 1740 (so defaintly no damp course) you live and learn if I could have the time back I would tell them who did it to get lost and now I live in dread of what we have done, fingers crossed it don't rear its ugly head tooooooo sooooooon.

Keep smiling I do or try to
Raylea

 

[NT]

If there are no signs of a damp problem then there isnt one. The possible exception to this is where a mouldy wall has been cleaned up and painted, the mould will soon return so only possible if the paint is new.

All walls will contain a tiny degree of water content because theyre not in 0% RH surroundings. Old non-cavity walls have higher content because of the absence of the cavity, which acts as a water barrier. This is why cavity walls were introduced, not for insulation.

The damp game is standard practice at sale time. If you have no sign of damp, there is no need to discuss solutions, as there aint nothing to solve.


NT

 

[Lime]

The damp game, isn't it just!

These damp firms trade on the fact that there is a fundamental difference between old design and new.

Modern design aims at keeping water out of a structure completely and relies on zero moisture content.
Any failure of that design can be catastrophic to it's integrity.

Older design allows water into and out of a structure with a moisture content that varies all the time.
The design is more robust when failure or damage occurs.

 

[Vicsteve]

Update.

I got my full survey back and the surveyor stated that the damp is caused by the guttering being warped (it is) and the house already has damp proof course less that 10 years old and the reason it still looks damp is that it was never replastered inside.

The tiled floor does not need resin applied and basically all that needs doing is plastering and sorting out the gutters.

Am very pleased. Now all I have to do is get the wiring and gas checked!

 

[Nemesis]

And report the people who gave you the damp report to Trading Standards?

It's a rip off!

Good though. Bet you feel very relieved.

Bet it didn't require a DPC ten years' ago either, but there you go!

 

[NT]

Now all I have to do is get the wiring and gas checked!

Not going to repeat the experience are you?


NT

 

[Lime]

Now all I have to do is get the wiring and gas checked!

Not going to repeat the experience are you?


NT

I think a similar experience is difficult to avoid.
There are so many scams milking the housing market.
Starting with estate agents taking percentages of house value (why?) and all the rest.
House owners and purchasers are sitting ducks when it comes to being ripped off.
Then there's the government taking a percentage too.
I wonder why we put up with it?
After all, whose money is it?