DIY Damp Proofing Advice please!

ruthie81_2

We are in the process of buying our first house, a 1920's end terrace house in Sheffield. The house does not have damp but we have been recommended to get damp proofing at this stage in regards to replastering etc.

We have been looking into the possibility of doing the damp proofing ourselves in order to save some money but we are nervous that this could lead to more problems than its worth.

Does anyone have experience of DIY damp proofing in this situation? How did you get on? Was it easy? Problematic?? Did it take a long time? Was it effective? Was it worth it????

Any advice anyone has would be very gratefully received! Thanks.

muckybutt

We did diy on our first house.

Bought the dpm liquid from a supplier with guarantee and full instructions, then got the injection equipment from HSS.

Took one weekend to do external and internal walls of a two bed bungalow, still bone dry 7 years later when we move and surveys were done

Time consuming bit was drilling all the holes and hacking all the plaster off.

Leif

I might be totally mistaken, but I would have thought that it wasn't worth doing 'damp proofing' in the absence of damp. Damp tends to be either penetrating damp, due for example to a leaking gutter and bridged cavity wall, or condensation. What you propose does not tackle either issue. If you have damp coming from below, then it might make sense. Another source of damp is leaks, for example from heating pipes.

My house had damp treatment about 20 years ago, in the form of an injected DPC, and the plaster in some rooms was hacked off to knee height, and then tanked (hard plastered). When I recently bought the house, I found some condensation caused by vinyl floor tiles in most rooms. I lifted them. The tanking was a problem as it had been wall papered over so when I removed the paper, I was left with an ugly join between old plaster and tanking which I had to fill. My suspicion is that the damp was condensation on screed floors caused by vinyl tiles, and the damp treatment stopped the floor damp from travelling up the walls. It would have been cheaper to remove the tiles. But that is a guess on my part.

What kind of floors do you have? My guess is suspended, with earth below, in which case you need to ensure adequate ventilation under the floor.