Buying a house with damp issues- concrete floor to blame?

minibbb

Good morning all

I have just had a an offer accepted on a two bed Victorian terrace house however it has some damp issues as well as needing updating throughout. It seems have a concrete floor downstairs- I would have thought this would have originally been timber.

Basically there is a fair bit of what appears to be rising damp along the whole length of the house between this one and the next door property. It looks like it goes about 1M from the floor up the walls.

The owner (its a probate sale) had a couple of local companies come in to quote for the work and its looking at about 5K to sort the issue out. Its not just the one wall affected, also affects the walls in the ground floor hallway however this bit isnt as bad. They have also quoted for two damp patches upstairs which are believed to be due to the flashing.

I will be picking up a copy of the quotes to study but I should imagine it'll be a new damp proof course etc.

Am I likely to get a mortgage ok with this issue as it is?

How common a problem is damp on interior party walls with Victorian terrace houses?

Go ahead with the purchase or look elsewhere?

Im happy to pay 5K to fix the damp assuming this will completely sort the issue out however I will of course hunt around for other quotes before agreeing to this.

Any thoughts/advice much appreciated!

Thanks

muckybutt

Mortgage company might put a retainer on until the damp is sorted out, but shouldn't stop you getting a mortgage.

We get damp here and there from time to time in the middle of the house, we live in a terraced cottage, next door get exactly the same problems too - theirs a little more serious as their o/s wall dpc has failed.

WendellG

Where is the damp coming from? Treating it won't help if you don't cure the cause.

roger196

Have a chat with the neighbour to see what his take on the issue is. Buy yourself a damp meter and check the problem yourself. A damp proofing company is not a disinterested party.

Edwardia

Victorian houses were usually built without damp courses. They weren't damp though because the walls were permeable and allowed moisture to escape interior to exterior.

Since that era, people have replaced lime mortar between bricks with cement mortar, skim plastered horsehair plaster walls with gypsum plaster, painted with vinyl silk emulsion (Dulux often photographs paints on seemingly old buildings but in the brochures you'll usually find somewhere 'not suitable for walls more than 100 years old') or added vinyl wallpaper and blocked up chimneys. On the outside, cottages have been rendered or painted with masonry paint, which these days contain plastics.

A Victorian house was NOT built in the same way in the same way that a modern house is and therefore expecting it to measure up to modern standards of dryness and thermal insulation. So the surveyor should be looking at it as an old building. The RICS knows this and there is a register of surveyors who specialise in old buildings.

These energy surveys that say you could save up to £300 per year by doing X.. well £300 isn't even £1 a day. If you smoke, you'd save far more money by giving up smoking than you would by adding cavity insulation.In fact in an old house, adding cavity insulation can become a nightmare, causing damp to bridge the cavity so you get wet walls.

I would start by eliminating obvious causes of dampness like breached DPC if one has been added, soil up to wall, path/drive/garden draining water towards house, leaking pipes, damaged flashing, missing roof tiles, inadequate underfloor ventilation, blocked up chimneys without ventilation grilles.

Also condensation in the house caused by inadequate kitchen/bathroom ventilation, not putting lids on saucepans, paraffin heaters, drying washing.

If the house hasn't ever been re-plastered or skim plastered that probably is horsehair plaster and choking it with layer upon layer of wallpaper (we have found up to twelve layers in places), won't do it any good -we have found nice mould growing under vinyl wallpaper.

The more you take away the modern non-breatheable plastic paints and plasters, coatings and wallpapers, the less damp the house.

minibbb

roger196 wrote: »

Have a chat with the neighbour to see what his take on the issue is. Buy yourself a damp meter and check the problem yourself. A damp proofing company is not a disinterested party.

Thats a very good idea, i'll pop by and have a chat to see what their experience is thank you!

minibbb

Edwardia wrote: »

Victorian houses were usually built without damp courses. They weren't damp though because the walls were permeable and allowed moisture to escape interior to exterior.

Since that era, people have replaced lime mortar between bricks with cement mortar, skim plastered horsehair plaster walls with gypsum plaster, painted with vinyl silk emulsion (Dulux often photographs paints on seemingly old buildings but in the brochures you'll usually find somewhere 'not suitable for walls more than 100 years old') or added vinyl wallpaper and blocked up chimneys. On the outside, cottages have been rendered or painted with masonry paint, which these days contain plastics.

A Victorian house was NOT built in the same way in the same way that a modern house is and therefore expecting it to measure up to modern standards of dryness and thermal insulation. So the surveyor should be looking at it as an old building. The RICS knows this and there is a register of surveyors who specialise in old buildings.

These energy surveys that say you could save up to £300 per year by doing X.. well £300 isn't even £1 a day. If you smoke, you'd save far more money by giving up smoking than you would by adding cavity insulation.In fact in an old house, adding cavity insulation can become a nightmare, causing damp to bridge the cavity so you get wet walls.

I would start by eliminating obvious causes of dampness like breached DPC if one has been added, soil up to wall, path/drive/garden draining water towards house, leaking pipes, damaged flashing, missing roof tiles, inadequate underfloor ventilation, blocked up chimneys without ventilation grilles.

Also condensation in the house caused by inadequate kitchen/bathroom ventilation, not putting lids on saucepans, paraffin heaters, drying washing.

If the house hasn't ever been re-plastered or skim plastered that probably is horsehair plaster and choking it with layer upon layer of wallpaper (we have found up to twelve layers in places), won't do it any good -we have found nice mould growing under vinyl wallpaper.

The more you take away the modern non-breatheable plastic paints and plasters, coatings and wallpapers, the less damp the house.

Blimy thats a superb reply, thank you so much for taking the time to provide me so much information!

I will be arranging a survey asap as im desperate to find out what the issue is and whether its something I can deal with or whether I should walk away.

One thing I should have mentioned is that the flooring downstairs is concrete- the gas supply pipe and central heating pipes are routed above the skirting boards. Could the concrete floor be the cause of the damp issues?

dampdaveski

Hi mini,
Damp proof courses started to be put in houses after 1875 (when the housing act was passed). So if yours was built around the 1900's then it will most likely have either a bitumen DPC or a slate one

If the concrete floor has been added afterwards which by the sound of it it probably has (or at least the main lounge) then the concrete floor will have bridged (covered over) the original DPC.
Edwardia makes valid points about allowing the walls to breathe etc, however if the DPC is physically covered over by the concrete then there is a 'building fault' to rectify.
As you say it's a probate sale, so i'm guessing that the property has been empty for a while and of course it's probably had an old dear in it so maintenance and ventilation to the property will no doubt have been poor.
Subject to mortgage issues I would recommend that you get the property, sort the roof leaks out, strip all the manky decorations then let the property 'breathe' for a couple of weeks - windows open every day, good through flow of air etc
THEN get people in to price the works
If you're concerned over contractors giving unbiased advice (bearing in mind i'm a contractor) then go for an indpendent damp surveyor, you'll find them on the Property Care Association website www.property-care.org

It would also be appropriate to have a word with the neighbours as others have suggested.
Good luck
DD

minibbb

dampdaveski wrote: »

Hi mini,
Damp proof courses started to be put in houses after 1875 (when the housing act was passed). So if yours was built around the 1900's then it will most likely have either a bitumen DPC or a slate one

If the concrete floor has been added afterwards which by the sound of it it probably has (or at least the main lounge) then the concrete floor will have bridged (covered over) the original DPC.
Edwardia makes valid points about allowing the walls to breathe etc, however if the DPC is physically covered over by the concrete then there is a 'building fault' to rectify.
As you say it's a probate sale, so i'm guessing that the property has been empty for a while and of course it's probably had an old dear in it so maintenance and ventilation to the property will no doubt have been poor.
Subject to mortgage issues I would recommend that you get the property, sort the roof leaks out, strip all the manky decorations then let the property 'breathe' for a couple of weeks - windows open every day, good through flow of air etc
THEN get people in to price the works
If you're concerned over contractors giving unbiased advice (bearing in mind i'm a contractor) then go for an indpendent damp surveyor, you'll find them on the Property Care Association website www.property-care.org

It would also be appropriate to have a word with the neighbours as others have suggested.
Good luck
DD

Thank you for yet another very comprehensive reply- I really appreciate it! You raised a very good point about the DPC being covered up, I went to see my surveyor today and have booked the survey for Monday so I don't have long to wait to find out. I explained to him about my concerns with the floor so am sure he will look at it properly for me. If there is a "building fault" to rectify what would this involve? Re-laying the entire floor?

I also went to see one of the damp proofing companies today who had quoted for the works- its one of the companies on the website you quoted. Their quote was £3250 plus vat to sort the damp downstairs, this covers most of the inside wall surfaces so a fair bit of work. Also includes the internal repairs upstairs. I asked them about materials etc such as whether they use lime plaster. The answer was no, they use a 3:1 mix of washed sharp sand an portland cement incorporating a waterproof additive and setting will be carried out with Siraphite or similar.

To me this doesn't sound particularly sympathetic to the Victorian construction as already suggested! I asked about the concrete floor and he didnt seem too concerned, he said they've not had to replace a concrete floor due to damp in the area of town im buying in and said they'd use a vinyl screed over the concrete to seal it.

Another damp company also on the PCA website quoted for the works however this was 5K inc vat so a fair bit more.

Sorry to keep going on however as you can probably tell im quite worried about this and don't want to lose our dream house due to pesky damp issues! (as well as whatever the survey may bring up- hopefully not much else as no doubt the property preservation companies would have flagged these up already!!)

Many thanks again

spannerzone

Useful info here:
http://www.heritage-house.org/pages/managing-damp-in-old-buildings.html

minibbb

spannerzone wrote: »

Useful info here:
http://www.heritage-house.org/pages/managing-damp-in-old-buildings.html

Great website thanks for that!! :T

Here is what ive been quoted for:

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