Damp in the house - looking to sell

Firsttimeseller

Good evening and thank you for reading. I've been driving myself crazy learning about damp and would be very grateful for the wisdom of others.

We are getting our house ready to sell and as part of that have contacted a chap who deals with damp to come and assess some patches of peeling paint in our kitchen. We live in a 150yr old stone built terrace with storage heating only and double glazing and have several patches of flaking paint along the bottom of an internal wall in the kitchen. The guy came and stuck his meter on the walls (heard these aren't great) and said that he got damp readings throughout the kitchen and up the stairs from the kitchen that are going to take £4000 to fix (house worth about £160k). If this is truly the case then I will pay the man and get the work done as I wouldn't want to knowingly pass on a problem and hear that fixing the damp is cheaper than what I would have to knock off the asking price. However, I do want to make sure it is necessary as I also hear that damp companies will sometimes not be entirely truthful.

So, my questions:

Is there any chance this is condensation? (The walls have a cold moist feeling to them but not dripping) Would there be any point getting a dehumidifier and seeing if it would improve the situation? How long would it take for a dehumidifier to have an effect?

Is it worth getting an independent damp survey done?

And is the general feeling to get this work done rather than knocking off the asking price? The guy warned me it would take a couple of weeks and be a dirty job.

Thank you for reading and your thoughts. It's a lot of money and we want to make sure it's well spent.

Slithery

Please don't get this cowboy to do the work for you. It will probably end up doing more harm than good to the property.

G_M

Firsttimeseller wrote: »

.....contacted a chap who deals with damp to come and assess some patches of peeling paint in our kitchen.
who is this 'chap'? Does he work for a damp proof company? Is he a self-employed damp-proofer? If yes, he is bound to find work he can quote you for.....

We live in a 150yr old stone built terrace
Ah! So be careful with any proposed dampproofing. Old properties and stone at that, need dealing with differently to a modern property......

....The guy came and stuck his meter on the walls (heard these aren't great)
Yes. They are a great excuse to quote for expensive work.....

and said that he got damp readings throughout the kitchen and up the stairs from the kitchen that are going to take £4000 to fix
Now why did I think this was coming... !!

If this is truly the case then I will pay the man and get the work done
STOP! PLESE! Get a 2nd and 3rd opinion and make sure you use people with no vested interest in 'finding' damp.

as I wouldn't want to knowingly pass on a problem
Buyers get surveys done for a reason.

and hear that fixing the damp is cheaper than what I would have to knock off the asking price.
and you heard that where? Not from the 'chap' by any chance....:rotfl:


However, I do want to make sure it is necessary as I also hear that damp companies will sometimes not be entirely truthful.
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Is there any chance this is condensation?
Yes.

Would there be any point getting a dehumidifier and seeing if it would improve the situation?

No.Assuming there IS damp, then identify the cause and fix that

Is it worth getting an independent damp survey done? Do I need to answer that?

And is the general feeling to get this work done rather than knocking off the asking price? The guy warned me it would take a couple of weeks and be a dirty job. Why - what is he going to do? Inject nice chemicals into your stone-work? Strip off plaster and replace it wthout adressing the cause of the problem? Or what?

several patches of flaking paint along the bottom of an internal wall in the kitchen.

What kind of floor? Solid? Concrete? Damp proof membrane? Or suspended? Wooden joists? What?

As it's an internal wall you can common discount external factors, and I suspect condensation (do you ventilate the kitchen when cooking?) would be higher up.

But do not do anything till you understand
* whether there really is a damp issue
* what is the cause of the damp
* what the proposed cure is and whether is is appropriate for a) the cause above and b) a 150 year old stone cottage

Doozergirl

Send photos. Inside and outside walls of apparently affected walls

aries_163

I’d get an independent damp survey who has no affiliations to a dampproofing company.
We had damp patches on a couple of internal walls in our 1970s bungalow (non- std construction). Had a man round from a damp proofing company who quoted about the same as you mentioned to strip off the plaster and put some sort of membrane to stop the damp showing through the plaster and paint. But mentioned nothing about solving the source of the damp.
Then we paid for an independent survey who advised the likely cause was due to the blockpaving outside breaching the dampproof course and steps to take to remedy this. Lo and behold we have done the outside block paving work and the damp patches have stopped growing (fingers crossed it stays this way over winter!!)