Mould in Recently purchased house

DeanE153

In August me and my partner purchased our first home.

Over the last couple of months we have had a fairly bad issue with mould in 2 of the bedrooms upstairs. I called in a damp proofing company to take a look and see what is causing the issue and he has advised us that the issue is with condensation and there is no ventilation to any of the rooms upstairs, There is one vent to one of the rooms which has been plastered over and the other rooms have nothing at all.

We have decorated one of the rooms in question and it has ruined wallaper so needs to be done again. In addition to that we need to get a PIV system installed in the loft to ventilate the house which wont be far off £1000 when taking into account buying it and fitting.

My question is should this have been picked up on the initial survey when purchasing the property - A small amount of rising damp was detected on the ground floor but we got a damp and timber report done before completion which advised everything was ok. We have put in a complaint to the surveyor which has been rejected and the next step of their procedure is to take it to senior management with them. before I do this I was wondering if anyone here had dealt with anything similar and had any success?

If we have to pay out of our own pockets we will but I thought we should have at least been made aware from the initial report done.

Grenage

It's almost always a problem with lifestyle; drying clothes indoors, not ventilating the property, etc.

You will need to alter your lifestyle, or buy a dehumidifier, etc.

You'd have no claim against the surveyor, as they've not done anything wrong.

DeanE153

I know the issue is with ventilation as there is only one vent upstairs which has been covered by a previous occupant of the property and there are no vents on the double glazing windows upstairs like there are downstairs.

If the surveyor has done nothing wrong that's fair enough. I just thought that considering they got us to get the ground floor checked out by a damp expert they would have also checked the damp levels on the upstairs walls.

We are using a dehumidifier at the moment but it's not really a long term solution.

pinkshoes

What sort of survey did you pay for?

always_sunny

Are these rooms windowless? Have you tried to open them from time to time?
Trickle vents can be installed to overcome the issue sometime.

Has the dehumidifier helped keeping the humidity under control (with a hygrometer), why isn't it a long term solution? I don't know where you bought this house but most of the country is fairly humid.

Of course you will have to pay from your own pocket, it'd be endless claims in the UK for humidity!

Ithaca

You say you bought in August, which presumably means the survey was done some time around April-June time?

It could be that there were no obvious sign of damp or mould if the weather was warm... people have their windows open more and dry clothes outside, plus the air is warmer and drier anyway, so your surveyor might not have had anything to suggest there could be a problem.

It's only now that the weather is colder that you get a problem - windows stay shut, it's tempting to dry clothes on indoor drying racks or radiators (do you have a tumble-dryer?), and walls get colder so warm moist air will condense and encourage mould.

DeanE153

We had basic survey but that was on the advice of a financial adviser who is from the same company that did the survey.

We do leave the windows slightly open but obviously in the winter you dont really want all the upstairs windows open while at work all day as when you get back in at night it's cold.

The dehumidifier helps but we only have one and it only does one room, dont fancy leaving one of these running all day in every room upstairs. I understand there is humidity and I understand the lack of ventilation is the issue but I just thought as this had been detected downstairs, they would have also taken readings from upstairs.

Mardle

Have you got any extractor fans fitted?

lincroft1710

DeanE153 wrote: »

We do leave the windows slightly open but obviously in the winter you dont really want all the upstairs windows open while at work all day as when you get back in at night it's cold.

Check that leaving windows open when out of the house does not invalidate your home contents insurance policy. The policy I have, not only insists on windows being closed but if window locks are fitted, they should also be locked

fairy_lights

DeanE153 wrote: »

We do leave the windows slightly open but obviously in the winter you dont really want all the upstairs windows open while at work all day as when you get back in at night it's cold.

How long do you leave them open for?

BOBS

Same problem in our 1990ś built bungalow - only solution is to keep windows on the latch all the time when we are at home.
Believe it or not - I am actually sleeping much better now with fresh air getting into the room at night. Only time I close windows at night is if its windy and therefore a tad too noisy to sleep.
hth