Damp: The ins and outs?

Sycrid

Hiya guys, I'm seeking some advice on damp.

Scenario: I had a surveyor come out and look at a house I'm planning on buying, because we had a sneak suspicion that the house may have some degree of damp. His report detailed no damp, and said the house was fine, minus some minor things that could be redone.

On this basis, we made an offer, and it was accepted. As part of the banks agreement to issue a mortgage as most of us know, they must send a valueyer to ensure that their money is invested correctly. The valueyer has highlighted that there is damp, his simple report states...

"There is evidence of dampness to ground floor walls and timbers in contact may be defective."

With this being said, they have still issued myself with the mortgage, and I'm puzzled as to the importance of this issue, is it something that will have massive implications? As I'm unable to accrue the finance to resolve this issue immediately, is it something that I can live with until I can afford for it to be fixed? Or is it a good idea to cancel the purchase of this house?

I'm asking because I have this nagging question of, we live in england, there is plenty of water everywhere, so there must be hundreds of houses in the UK that suffer from this issue, both knowingly and unknowingly.

Anyway what's the facts? What kind of cost is involved with this issue, can it be lived with for a while, if so, any suggestions to minimize the impact... e.g. warm home, good insulation, dehumidifier etc.

Note: we currently live in a loft apartment which is freezing cold all the time, costs a fortune to heat and the heat dissapears very fast (it's a rental so we have limitations to what we can do). What with the level of cold in the apartment I'm puzzled why it doesn't have damp. etc...

mrs_motivated

A lot of damp is due to old houses plastering straight on to brick, with no cavity. Condensation (usually caused by inadequate ventilation and lifestyle choices) gets into the plaster and mould/damp patches occur.

To permenantly cure this you could knock old plaster off, baton walls, thermaline plaster board and replastered. Messy job, but makes house warmer, more efficient and cures damp.

Of course it's hard to say exactly,nwithout knowing the house and type of damp.

mrs_motivated

Just to add lots of people with this problem, block all ventilation and whack the heating up. If it is what I previously described, this won't cure the problem but will in fact make it worse.

Fire_Fox

Damp is not one entity, it can be condensation, rising or penetrating for example. In flats condensations is the most common - generally caused by failure to ventilate and lifestyle issues - but as you say your current apartment is drafty. Coldness does not cause damp, water does, coldness simply makes the air hold less water so it is more likely to settle on cold surfaces when the air gets saturated.

Until you know what sort of damp you have in the new house and what the root cause is nobody can advise you on the remedy or cost. Even if the damp is rising damp, the issue might be an ancient damp proof course, or something inside or outside of the house bridging a perfectly good DPC. Did you pay for a full structural survey? If so your surveyor should have picked up on the damp, if any, what made you think there was damp? You need to identify the cause, get quotations for resolving the problem then renegotiate the price with the vendor.

pararct

The timbers reference is in relation to floor joists where the end where it is set into the wall brickwork may have rotted away where is has been in contact with the damp.
This can be problematic in that the floor will have to come up and any stud walls placed on it removed to facilitate this.

Was there any evidence of any uneven floors?

I bought a property (built in 1850) where a leaking pipe from the original bathroom (when they got round to putting one in sometime we think in the 30's) had rotted through the end of two floor joists.
I was aware of the problem when I purchased and as we were replanning that room anyway it wasn't a big consideration to rectify it. An old lathe and plaster wall had to be taken down then the floor came up some outside bricks were knocked out and 2 new timber floor joists were pushed into place through the outside wall.

All in all not a terribly big job nor too expensive think it came in at under £3k and that included refurbing the room and rebuilding a stud wall.

Unless there is evidence of a terribly uneven floor I would discount it as a worry, it is probably the lenders surveyor covering his posterior.

honey1

Since your surveyor found no damp, but the lender's surveyor did, I would ring your surveyor, tell him, and ask him to go back (at no cost) and take another look!

Damp can be caused by many different things. Without knowing the cause it is impossible to comment on the best remedy, or the cost, or the seriousness.

This might be of interest.