Damp proofing

frugglewump

Apparently the house we are buying has rising damp. We've had an inspection and the quote below is from a local firm (hayes, middx) offering a 20year guarantee.

Chemical damp proofing £442 +VAT
Completion work £260 +VAT

From the report about 50 feet of wall needs damp-proofing and 20ft needs the plaster removed and replaced. Opinions on the pricing?

Part of the work is on a party wall (house is mid-terrace) so I need to tell the people who have just bought the adjoining house. Anyone able to tell me what effect it would have on their side of the wall?

cattie

It sounds very competitive to me. I paid just a bit less than that for a similar area a few years ago now.

When the wall is replastered you have to leave it to dry out for about 2-3 months I think it is, before you can decorate.

No idea on the party wall part of things as the work I had done was on walls attached to my property only.

ben_edwards2612

Had similar experiance. Upon research the case of rising damp and its detection is fiercly fought from both angles. I would suggest looking for alternative reasons for the damp before plunging into having work done. Make sure the survey is done by a member of the British Wood Preserving and Damp Proofing Association https://www.bwpda.co.uk/. Ours was but I still decided to wait for several months after moving to decide. The property had been vacant for several months and this is cited as a potential cause of damp often reported as rising damp. In our case having had the central heating on the damp patches have all but vanished after 2 months so I am hoping that this was the reason! Other mis-diagnosies of rising damp can be as simple as material stacked against int/ext-erior walls.
The only way to really detect rising damp is for core samples to be taken from the brickwork - I assume this is expensive. Usually conductivity near the surface is tested - often done with free surveys - this is very much an estimate in my opinion. Remember that those who supply the survey often have either a vested interest or need to cover themselves (e.g. surveyors) in case of legal action.

Good luck!

frugglewump

ben_edwards2612 wrote:

I would suggest looking for alternative reasons for the damp before plunging into having work done. Make sure the survey is done by a member of the British Wood Preserving and Damp Proofing Association https://www.bwpda.co.uk/. Ours was but I still decided to wait for several months after moving to decide. The property had been vacant for several months and this is cited as a potential cause of damp often reported as rising damp. In our case having had the central heating on the damp patches have all but vanished after 2 months so I am hoping that this was the reason! Other mis-diagnosies of rising damp can be as simple as material stacked against int/ext-erior walls.

Prior to this survey I had thought the damp was from 3 reasons
- the heating has been off for nearly 2 months now as the tenants moved out early december
- the window in the wall that is worst affected needs some mastic applying as rainwater is getting in via the bottom edge joint
- the worst affected wall is the one between the main building and the single story extension and the flashing over that connection has come away from the wall and one of the roof gutters empties out onto the flat roof near that point.

This damp quote is as a result of a specialist damp firm coming in after the surveyor said it was necessary. They supplied a diagram of the ground floor showing where the treatment is needed and there is quite a lot more than where the structural survey pointed out problems - mind you it's been a month since the survey (21st dec). I spoke to the damp firm this morning and they said that the damp course (bitumen) in the extension had broken down so the rainwater coming in and lack of heating didn't help, but weren't the cause.