Damp/dry rot problem/insurance - help!

Bojangles_3

There is a fine and generous community in this forum. Wonder if any of you can help me.

I am not sure what is causing our problem under the floor of our front room in our bay fronted Victorian terraced house. I am left confused by the definition of what the problem actually is. (I was hoping to attach photos here, but I cannot.) I emailed these pictures to Strand preservations (the company that gave a 30 year guarantee to the developer who refurbished this house – and whom we bought the house from). Strand say it looks like dry rot. The developer that we bought the house from just over 2 years ago, thinks it is wood rotting fungi.

We noticed the problem after a year of being in the house – there were areas of black inside a cupboard on the internal part of the wall, where externally the rainwater drain runs, also the skirting boards split and the laminate floor had dark patches and was bulging . We made an insurance claim. The builder that did our insurance repair last year, said it was wet rot (incidently not covered by our policy – I suspect the contractor twisted the truth so that he could get the work, but I cannot prove this.) Anyway, the insurance contractor sub-contracted someone else and he replaced some timbers, treated them and made good the area internally. Perhaps he did not treat a wide enough area - as the problem has moved from the edge of the front room (where he treated) into the middle. We rang our insurance company, who said that it was regrettable that the contractor they instructed failed to tell us that the source of water ingress was likely to be a defective external drain from rainwater pipe. (This also may not be covered under our policy as it may be ‘wear and tear’) So, the subcontractor went ahead and fixed an internal problem, without dealing properly with the source externally. I have lodged a complaint with our insurers Liverpool Victoria on this today.

I strongly suspect, however, that something has not been treated thoroughly enough in the first place. Strand preservations were asked by the developer we bought this house from back in June 2004 to 'determine the presence & extent of problems relating to:

1 Rising Dampness

2 Wood boring insects/wood rotting fungi'

Strand highlighted in their report that they observed the following:

High external ground levels
Insufficient sub-floor ventilation
Areas of moisture ingress noted
Fungal decay evident

Strand then make these recommendations - to be done by the developer: (none of which, I suspect were done)

Reduce external ground levels or Sika tank earth retaining walls (ground level was not reduced - victorian mosiac tiles are/were undisturbed. Not sure if the Sika tanking was done)
Add more air vents (this was not done - there is still only one in the middle of the bay window, there are no other vents on either flank of the bay, nor are there vents at the back of the house allowing a through flow of air. DO I HAVE A CLAIM AGAINST THE COUNCIL FOR PASSING THIS WORK?)
All actual and potential sources of moisture ingress to be rectified (I do not know if this was ever done no-one has told me where this is/may be)
Suspect areas to be exposed to allow full inspection (the developer assures me this was all done - for the District Surveyor & for Strand - I can only take his word for it)
All decayed and defective timbers to be replaced using new pre-treated timbers to be fully isolated from the oversite/masonry (all I have been told by the developer is that Strand injected a vertical DPC - to ensure the horzontal DPC was not breached - and did a ‘standard spray’ of the timbers - again I have to take his word and assume he sprayed all wood beneath the floorboards). It looks from the paperwork, that this cost £600 + VAT. – I suspect this was insufficient and all done on the cheap, to get a guarantee to show the surveyor, but it is difficult to prove this.

If it is Dry Rot, Strand have told me it would take two/three years to develop to the level we have it at. We are getting them to come back – under heavy protest for free and only by saying that we’ll need someone to do this work – can’t they see it as quoting for the work? Ideally, ofcourse we would like them to do it under guarantee. But no-one thinks they will. They’ll just say they treated what they needed to at the time. They may even use the excuse that they could not access all areas during the development to have fully investigated any problems in that front room. We will see.

Finally, our mortgage lender appointed our surveyor, Colleys, and we had a home buyer's report carried out. - Maybe in hindsight, the scope of this was limited as by the time they looked, all floors were covered up. All it said about the area in question was: 'a large concrete surround is present to the rain water gulley to the front. I was led to believe by the builder that a vertical DPC has been fitted behind this to prevent breach of the horizontal DPC'. In the 'matters for conveyancer' section at the end of the report, it said 'I understand that damp proofing and timber treatment has been carried out and your conveyancer should make sure there are adequate guarantees'. WELL, THERE’S A GUARANTEE, BUT HARDLY ADEQUATE!

Who is accountable? The developer – has he done a quick fix, cover up job to get the property sold? I suspect he had cash flow problems for his other developments.
Strand Preservations – for not doing a thorough check, doing a quick and relatively cheap fix on behalf of the developer (whom he gives a fair amount of work to), who failed to identify or name the problem as dry rot two and a half years ago. Both of them?
The council – for allowing it to pass building regulations, when clearly there is sub-standard ventilation and checks have not been thorough enough?
The people that did our survey – it cost us £700 for them to say ‘the scope of our report is limited’ – too right it was – they leave it to the solicitor to ensure there is an adequate guarantee.
Our solicitor – yes, there is a guarantee, but it’s worthless. Turns out, because the developer did the finishing render, Strand did not complete the work – the developer did

Can anyone help?

Please.

Bojangles

Doozergirl

Well, that's complicated!

I think you need to have a proper damp and timber survey carried out by someone other than Strand to establish exactly what the problem is. You also need to get someone to come and look at how your rainwater is draining. If you have leaks, it will cause damage!

As for accountability, your developer cannot be held acountable as when you buy a property it is always a case of 'caveat emptor'; buyer beware.
As for building control; as this is a refurbishment, not everything has to comply to current building regs. If something is not replaced, it does not have to comply.
Surveys, contrary to popular opinion, do not provide guarantees of any sort. Surveyors have insurance to cover them should anything go very wrong, but I can almost guarantee that your survey report will have some sort of disclaimer mentioning something along the lines of it being your responsibility to obtain specialist reports.
The guarantee provided by Strand will only cover the work they actually carried out, which sounds only like spraying of the woodwork.

I have a feeling that unless what you are suffering with now relates to what Strand did at the time, that the cost of repairs are going to fall either with you or (fingers crossed) your insurers.

I know very little about rot, except that I've had to have dry rot removed from developments at a cost of thousands and that to be sure that we had caught all of it we had to expose all of the brickwork behind plaster and replace a lot of the woodwork. Something black to my mind would be wet; you really need to find out where it is coming from.

If you set yourself up at https://www.photobucket.com you can paste pictures into here or you can just link to them

I hope I've been of some help and that someone with more expertise than me is able to help you!

Kaz2904

The problem you have got sounds very like what we have. The problem is caused because you have damp getting into the house. This is probably happening due to the exterior levels being 1. above the origional slate damp proof course and 2. you may find they are level with your air brick. Ours are and when it rains the water just pours off all the concrete into the house. My way around this is going to be by ripping up all of the concrete around the entire house but that is because we are renovating. You may be able to get around the problem by digging a french drain around the side of the house. I found the information for this on google and just typed damp in victorian houses or something of that ilk. Alternatively just type french drain and you should get the info. As to who's responsible, I can't help you on that one!

Bojangles_3

Hi

Thanks very much to both of you. Here are the photos of the original problem. Can anyone confirm for sure what this is?

http://s163.photobucket.com/albums/t319/Bojanglessw16/?action=view&current=.my_first_widget.pbw

Bo

PROFESSIONAL_LANDLORD

Kind of hard to see it properly! but I think I noticed the dreaded 'candy floss' and fungi,

Is there a solum treatment in this property ? (concrete or bitumen)

Doozergirl

:eek: OMG! That's really bad!

You need to find the source of the leak/water and that sorted once and for all! The moisture (understatement I think!) is clearly coming from the direction of the wall, which I presume is an external one? Whatever the contractor did last year, the source of the problem hasn't been found or addressed. You need to get out there and look and if it isn't clear from that, then you need to be digging holes! It doesn't matter what you replace inside, if you don't sort outside, you'll never stop it!

Whatever Strand did, it couldn't have anything to do with that, that is major! Your developer has missed something big time or just chosen to ignore it!

Contact your local council and ask them for a recommendation for a Damp & Timber company.

Are you in Streatham?

Doozergirl

Some nice pictures for you to compare, see if any of them ring a bell!

http://www.iscapreservation.co.uk/coniophora.htm

http://www.iscapreservation.co.uk/poria.htm

Bojangles_3

Doozergirl, thanks. Am getting a wee bit scared here. Is it that bad? Yes, I'm in Streatham. You know the area? You sure Lambeth will know who's best to contact?

I've looked up Property Care Association website and have booked in for two weeks time 3 specialists on this list in my area: Biocraft, Peter Cox (someone recommended on this site) and am getting Strand Preservations back in - though I note your earlier comment, thanks.

I've added 3 more photos to the slideshow which were taken a few days ago - 1 the external wall, where the drain pipe is (you may be able to see a bit of poorly rendered wall near the pipe) 2 the problem that is obviously splitting the skirting and causing the floor to warp/rise, 3 the brown rust like residue that's coming up from the laminate floor.

http://s163.photobucket.com/albums/t319/Bojanglessw16/?action=view&current=.my_first_widget.pbw

thanks
Bo
bojanglessw16@googlemail.com

Bojangles_3

PROFESSIONAL_LANDLORD wrote: »

Kind of hard to see it properly! but I think I noticed the dreaded 'candy floss' and fungi,

Is there a solum treatment in this property ? (concrete or bitumen)

Thanks, but I don't know what this is?

PROFESSIONAL_LANDLORD

The solum is the ground under the joists ! sometimes dampness can rise from there.

I once purchased a property it had serious damp problems, the previous owner had a Rentokil insurance policy on the house, and they would come out every few years, chop open the floor, replace some of the timber and spray to kill spores, Rentokil had been going to the property for over twenty years.


I was advised a new Damp Course would be req; quoted £000s...........WRONG!


The dampness was coming from the solum, FULL SURVEY MISSED IT


That's why I asked.

Doozergirl

As much of a priority as your damp people is a drainage survey. It does look like your water might getting in from the drain area. It might be blocked or broken but you need to get a man with a CCTV camera to come and see what's going on down there.

If it's blocked, there'll be water sitting against that wall when it rains as the ground normally slopes towards the drain (for obvious reasons)

If you take up the floorboards up against that wall, near to the downpipe, you'll get some clues from there too.

Lambeth should have a list of trusted suppliers or suchlike. I don't live there any more but our council can recommend people.

Streatham was very much my old stomping ground. I can, on occassion, still be found nursing a hangover in Slurp on the High Road after a heavy night with friends