Surveyors fault?

bouicca21

I have the exact same symptoms. In my case the 'rising damp' is rising from a leak under the floor from a pipe that can only have been installed 2 years ago. It's going to be mega expensive to fix and cause massive disruption. There is no way my surveyor could have spotted it. Thank goodness I am covered by what a long ago advert called having 'the strength of insurance' round me.

eddddy

Crazystar wrote: »

Thanks Eddddy. Yes, the walls of the garage are plastered and I am not sure how the plastering can cause the bridging? I notice the floor of garage is slightly raised compared to the living room.

As dc197 says, if the plaster covers the dpc, moisture can travel around the dpc through the plaster.

Was the garage floor raised as part of the conversion? If it was done badly, that could also be bridging the dpc.

Or as I and others mentioned, there could be a leak - e.g. does your water supply pipe run under the floor at that point? Are there central heating pipes under the floor?


I would always use an RICS buildings surveyor with experience in identifying building defects to investigate this kind of problem. I once used an 'Independent Damp Surveyor' (a member of the PCA) and they just didn't have the right type of knowledge. Consequently, their report was complete nonsense. (But maybe I was just unlucky to pick a bad company.)

Crazystar

My Buildings Surveyor who surveyed the property in Nov 2015 has replied and said he will visit the property next week and I hope he will be able to provide some useful advice.

A local damp proofer who came yesterday said the living room does NOT need new DPC as he thinks the damp is caused due to capillary action where the moisture is gettting absorbed from ground surface and there could be a gap between floor tiles (my floor has tiles on top of concrete and acts as a water repellent) and the wall. He said he will take out the affected plaster on the wall and insert a raisin between at the edges of the wall and this will solve the problem.

For garage room he said its a rising damp and explained thats happening due to bridging. A pillar in garage room is bridging the dpc and hence has caused the rising damp in garage room. I felt his analysis of the living room is OK but I am not very sure how does a pillar cause the bridging in garage room. He is quoting 1500£ to replaster living room, insert raisin and inject chemical dpc for garage wall.

Is this a fair analysis of the issue and the price quoted? He is giving 20 years insurance cover for this work.

eddddy

I'd suggest you tell the building surveyor what the damp proofer said. Hopefully, the building surveyor will either agree, or tell you why the damp proofer is wrong.

Regarding your original question, you can also ask the surveyor whether he took damp readings as part of his original survey. But it's possible that the wall dries out in dry warmer weather, but gets damp again after wet weather.

The seller could even have used heaters/dehumidifiers to hide the problem from the surveyor.