damp advice please

sophieandemily

I hope I am posting on the right board here.
I could do with some honest advice regarding the damp in my house.
I have a two bedroom end terrace house that is really damp both upstairs and downstairs on all the external walls.
Downstairs the walls are wet to around three to four feets all the way round which can be clearly seen as we have stripped all the wallpaper off. The windows also constantly run with condensation despite being dried each day and having boxes of salt stuff on all window sills.
Upstairs the walls are all wet but in random patches under windows, in corners all over really. Again the windows run with condensation constantly.
We have now got thick black mould growing on all the walls which is really worrying me as I have a one year old and a two year old I also don't think the damp is good for our health obviously.
We have been in touch with our local council who sent out various people as part of a regeneration in the area type of plan. However the damp proofing specialist said we needed damp proof course (I think he is right but he quoted £2000 for our half of the bill), the double glazing man said we needed to replace the windows so they have trickle vents (we have massive bay windows so very expensive, we open all windows for a few hours each morning) guttering man said needed replacing (it had been done about four months before) central heating said we needed that up grading (again the whole system is new) anyway as you tell basically anyone that came in quoted us for what they can do. Then the council said they wouldn't help us, so now we need to solve the problem but without being ripped off.
Externally the front of the house is pebble dashed and the remaining two sides remain as just bricks we can see no obvious damage to this but have considered that we might need repointing or something
so where do we start any advice would be appreciated so much as this has gone on long enough
thank you
Beth

David_Aldred

Hi Beth,
Sorry to hear you have been suffering chronic levels of dampness with associated mould growth and yes you are correct to worry how this could impacty upon the health of your children as well as yourself. It sounds like you have also been through the mill with regard to the advice from the council / trying to get help from them and inviting people round who are there to sell their products likely based upon commision.

There is a lot to discuss within your mail but please be aware the mould growth has nothing to do with the damp proof course as the moisture from the ground tends to bring with it ground salts that tend to inhibit mould rather than encourage it. In addition the damp proof course contractor cannot prove rising dampness with an electrical damp meter they are simply guessing that is the cause for their own profit. Failure of an original damp proof course the house was built with is very rare and not surprisingly massively misdiagnosed by the companies selling replacement damp proof courses.

In the first instance please clean the mould down as soon as you see it. Do not allow it to flourish even if you have not yet resolved the reasons for its growth because it the products of the mould growth that will make you and your family a lot more ill than the damp itself.

Where you go from there is really up to you but trying to diagnose all the issues is not easy via forum postings and there is a good chance things that are relevant will be missed if you attempt to do that especially with conflicting advice from some folk on here. Equally having several contractors round as you have already found out is often a minefield to determine if the advice they are telling you is going to resolve the problem or whether they are just there to sell you a product and once that is installed they will not want to know if the situation fails to resolve.

Ideally please consider having a truly independent survey undertaken by a Freelance or Consultant Surveyor of the Property Care association (PCA) a list of which can be found on the PCA website under the heading find a member and selecting Freelance or Consultant (the rest are contractors looking for work) for one in your area to give them a ring and discuss.

They are specialists in dampness, mould and timber problems and they will spend a good couple of hours looking investigating what is really going on at the property as a whole because it is usually a number of things going on that are giving you the problems and most iomportantly they are not there to sell you anything other than charge for their time and the report they will issue detailing problems found and recommendations of how to address them. Hope this helpls kindest regards, David Aldred Independent damp and timber surveyor

dampdaveski

Hi Beth,
David talks sense, it sounds like you have a major condensation related problem to your house, or at least this seems to be the most obvious problem
The solutions (we use daily at the mo) is the installation of a Positive Input Ventilation unit such as a Nuaire Drimaster unit, or Envirovent Loft unit
http://nuaire.co.uk/Product/Residential_Products/Positive_Input_Ventilation

http://envirovent.com/home/healthy_homes.php

Both are good units but the envirovent is more expensive to buy as the manufacturer doesn't discount as much as nuaire

Obviously it is difficult to diagnose these problems on a forum (as david states quite rightly), but my advice to customers I go and visit is to remove the obvious problems from the equation and see what your left with.
I.E. If there's an obvious condensation problem, get that under control and if there is a rising damp problem you have more chance of correctly diagnosing it later on in the year

As usual Davids halo threatens to fall off
"Ideally please consider having a truly independent survey undertaken by a Freelance or Consultant Surveyor of the Property Care association (PCA) a list of which can be found on the PCA website under the heading find a member and selecting Freelance or Consultant (the rest are contractors looking for work) for one in your area to give them a ring and discuss."

Remember Beth the freelance and independants on the PCA website are just surveyors looking for work!
a phone call to a local contractor member saying I think I have a condensation problem can you help? may well be a lot cheaper than paying for a surveyor to tell you that you have a condensation problem!
If you do decide to go down that route, remember you can buy a drimaster unit supply only online for about £250 and expect to pay a sparky around £100

hope this helps
DD

David_Aldred

Hi Beth,
The reply by Dampdaveski is helpful and we both are here trying to be of assistance. He is a contractor (and judging by his past posts a reasonably good one) and I am an independent surveyor so we do have our disagreements on certain points but generally both of us sing off the same songsheet where a good contractor and surveyor can work together to resolve a problem.

The specialist independent surveyor will look at the property as a whole and fully investigate all the moisture sources that may be causing the problem. A good contractor may do this too but considering to do so will take at least a couple of hours at the property plus a complete following day to write the report specific to that property with drawings photographs etc it is usually not cost effective for a contractor doing a 'free' survey to spend this amount of time and consideration upon inspecting the problem and writing / drawing / photographing to produce a report hand written to that particular property.

Indeed if they spent that long on each and every 'free estimate' they would likely quickly go out of business and typically a dpc contractor who inspects properties for the company will inspect 3-6 houses a day including writing the reports with standard parapgraphs and issuing quotations for the products they are trying to sell be that damp proof courses or ventilation units or whatever. Most contractors surveyors are paid upon commision or some incentive to sell the products to keep the lads in work. No work for the lads and the firm will go bust.

From the above it will be clear to see which is going to give you the independent advice and be considerably more of an in depth investigation into what is actually going on with that property.

Another point of consideration is all independent specialist surveyors have professional indemnity (PI) insurance which protects you for the advice that is given and that you are relying upon. A contractor may have be able to obtain PI insurance if and it is a big if, they are appropriately qualified but the vast majority of damp proof company inspectors are unqualified and hence they cannot obtain PI insurance to cover the reports they write and the advice they give. They may be insured to do the actual work at the property for if they cause damage but that is an entirely different thing to being insured for the advice they give and the reports they issue. So when a contractor says from an electrical damp meter reading you have rising dampness when they have not actually proved rising dampness they are completely open to a claim of professional negligence. It should be clearly understood that if a person gives advice and it is reasonably foreseeable that somebody would act upon that advice they are fully liable for it whether they are insured to give that advice or not.

You pays your money and you takes your choice when you invite somebody into your home. They could be a great contractor (pointing at Dampdaveski), they could be a complete shark (builders from hell) with only profit in mind and the last thing they are bothered about is your list of problems or they could be a specialist surveyor in the problems you are worried about who is insured and qualified to give you that advice and whose evidence will stand up in court......

If work is required somebody will have to do it and that somebody will be a contractor. The question is whether the work that contractor does is appropriate and do you have redress if it is not. The comparison I often make is would you ask a builder who you do not know to simply build you a house however they like to whatever standard they like or would you comission an architect who is fully insured to specify what was required for a selection of contractors to then quote for?

Hope this helps, kindest regards David Aldred Independent damp and timber surveyor

Fire_Fox

If you are opening the windows for a few hours every day year round, then the problem is not as simple as lifestyle condensation (suggested by the mould) as good ventilation should limit this. The fact that you have water up to a height of three or four feet would suggest rising damp: why would you only be paying half of a £2K estimate?? If the water from rising damp evaporates then this may later settle as condensation on cold external walls .... I would make a guess that you will need to fix more than one problem to clear the damp, I'd start with DPC and move onto insuation whilst maintaining ventilation.

David_Aldred

Hi again,
Firefox and myself are usually very much in agreement but on this issue the amount of moisture that will evaporate into the property from a true rising damp problem is in no way enough to cause a condensation mould growth problem and this has been demonstrated as fact by Independent Consultants / the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and especially true if the house was built with damp proof course where any weaknesses in an existing dpc would only produce very marginal amounts of moisture vapour. The thought of recommending a replacement damp proof course on this basis is simply not in accordance with the recommendations of the British Standard for chemical damp proof courses BS6576 and would leave the contractor wide open to a claim of negligence. Kindest regards David Aldred Independent damp and timber surveyor

ddoris

guttering man said needed replacing (it had been done about four months before
What do you mean "done" -faulty guttering can ruin a house- get whoever did it back to sort any snags.

dampdaveski

David_Aldred wrote: »

Hi again,
Firefox and myself are usually very much in agreement but on this issue the amount of moisture that will evaporate into the property from a true rising damp problem is in no way enough to cause a condensation mould growth problem and this has been demonstrated as fact by Independent Consultants / the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and especially true if the house was built with damp proof course where any weaknesses in an existing dpc would only produce very marginal amounts of moisture vapour. The thought of recommending a replacement damp proof course on this basis is simply not in accordance with the recommendations of the British Standard for chemical damp proof courses BS6576 and would leave the contractor wide open to a claim of negligence. Kindest regards David Aldred Independent damp and timber surveyor

quite right too my independant friend

Fox it's that kind of innocent ignorance that an unscrupulous contractor will take advantage of and price / carry out works that potentially arn't needed
DD

bungrefurb

Hi guys am after some advice on a similar problem. Mid terrace house had a damp proof course approx 5 years ago. This has either failed or wasn't done properly in the first instance. problem went away for a few years but has reared its ugly head over the last few months. At the time of previous damp proof course we were not told what was causing the problem just that we needed the work doing. We paid 'cash' and had no receipt. In hindsight it was the wrong thing to do since there is no way of getting 'company' back to deal with recurrence.

The problem obviously needs attention. We have been quoted £850 for a further damp proof course, plaster to come off, injected and re plastered, backed by a guarantee. Having read this and some of the other threads it is not clear what is causing our damp. It is ok at the moment just looks like wet patches along bottom of wall. When it rains it looks alot worse, and is at the bottom of wall, round side of chimney breast and along the wall. the company who came out put a meter on the wall and then said the damp course had failed.

Can the experts please give me their views on how best to proceed. Appreciate any assistance.

bungrefurb

bump.............can anyone shed some light on the above post........thanks in advance

David_Aldred

Hi Bungrefurb,
Please can you supply further info:
Age of property
Cavity wall or solid wall
Ground floors solid or suspended timber
Cavity insulated or not if present
Is chimney breast on an outside wall
Is chimney breast open / still in use as a coal fire, if not what is used there now
Is mould present if so where
Are external walls rendered or plain brick
Have cavities ever been checked for debris
Kindest regards, David Aldred Independent damp and timber surveyor