Rising Damp Remedial Work Quote Reasonable?

bibek

Hi,

I am wondering if any builders, decorators, damp experts can offer me some advice regarding the issue im having and a remedial quote I have got from one of the local guys.

The house in Rochester, Kent (ME1 2PE) and is an end of terrace. (1960s build ?)

Couple of weeks back, we spotted bubbling of paint on the walls (marked with red lines in the image attached). Initially thought must be a leak from pipe or something as there is hot water tank on the first floor roughly above the area where the issue is. After calling out british gas, confirmed cant be the pipes as no pipe work around this area and the engineer suggested looks like rising damp instead.

Got someone in over the weekend and he has said the following:
"Based on the pattern and readings taken we believe the cause of this is rising damp. This is due to the sharp cut off point and salt damage that is evident, normally due to the lack of/failure of a damp proof course. Its likely to have all come out in one go due to the cold weather experienced recently, this generally means the heating comes on more frequently, causing the dampness to evaporate through the wall leaving the salts behind.
We would need to hack off the existing plaster back to brickwork, insert a new chemical based damp proof course and re-plaster the walls affected with a water resistant render. we only found this in 3 areas, and one of the areas needed a door reveal replacing as its caused the timber to rot slightly. This is all included in the cost.
For the above works to be carried out the price is £1280.00.
To be sure the problem doesn't persist we also recommend having a new damp proof membrane (DPM) painted on the floor, however this will involve bringing up the current laminate style flooring and bringing out as much of the kitchen/furniture as possible in order to access the concrete floor. We can provide a quote for this if needed, but the price for a new DPM throughout the ground floor is £1150.00."

I went back and asked for a full quote to pull out the flooring and kitchen units / appliances etc aswell and hes quoted me £960
"To remove all appliances and flooring etc and put it all back it will be an additional £960.00 all included. Everything should go back as it was however due to the dampness it might be fairly brittle/fall apart as were taking it up. Obviously we'll try our hardest to take it up and put it back down in once piece but sometimes its unavoidable!"

So £3390 all in. I do have someone else coming to do the survey aswell to gauge the price and see if they recommend similar remidial work as I do not want to spend ££££ without being 100% sure about the issue. Rang my insurance even before the survey was carried out and they said if it is rising damp then it would not be covered so quite upset about having to fork this much money out unexpectedly.

Anyways, does this sound fair to people who know about this kind of stuff ? Needless to ask but it would be silly not to get a new DPM throughout the ground floor ?

I look forward to your responses.

Thank you in advance!
Edit: Turns out I am unable to post link
This is the url -> imgur (dot) com/a/wy4XZ6g

bibek

stuart45

In the building trade, the chemical DPC injected into the masonry walls is known as the most mis-sold product of the last 40 or so years. It's highly unlikely that a 60's house would have a defective DPC.
However until the mid 60's most concrete floors didn't have a DPM.

JimmyChanga

Plenty on this subject online. If there are issues with damp then it's down to other factors. I've yet to see a damp proof course failure.

Stay far away from the company that gave you that quote and also don't call any more in. Read up on the reasons for damp first. Typical reasons are poor or faulty drainage. Most times gardens have been paved too high so the existing DPC won't work and/or causing rainwater to be directed towards the property than away from it.

Doozergirl

No it isn't okay.

I don't know what they put in these chemical damp proof courses, but they don't work. I've seen plenty of those fail too and there's always an initial reason. I'm working on a house bow that was riddled at the back and on internal walls because a patio had been built no less than five courses above the DPC across a length of 10 metres! No new DPC was ever going to stop what was coming in underneath and soaking the whole underneath of the rear of the house. It's outrageous because it was so obvious to me but so many people are completely ignorant to it.

There will be a reason for that damp - it's perfectly likely that it's tracking in from outside. If there is a DPM in the floor then it will take the path up the walls.

If you were already wet and standing in a puddle, you wouldn't put a waterproof coat on. You'd step out of the puddle.

You need to find the source. A picture of the problem areas and your outside walls would be helpful.

Does the house have airbricks? Are all gullies clear? Downpipes discharging properly? Guttering clear? Are your ground levels well below the DPC outside? Any water running downhill towards the house? Where is that draining to?

Slithery

Let me guess, was this a free quote from a salesman or did you pay for a survey from a registered professional who has no interest in carrying out the work?

Don't do it. Chances are that the existing DPC is fine and not the cause of the damp. Whatever these cowboys do usually makes things worse, not better.

bibek

This was a "no obligation" quote from someone I found from Checkatrade. Whilst reading up online, I did find numerous posts from people saying be careful with tradesmen recommending work thats not necessary or the cause of the issue, mainly why I came here to get some advice.

Any idea roughly how much an independent survey costs ? Till I called this guy, I didnt know the magnitude of the issue but if its going to cost me thousands then I will pay for a professional survey before I instruct anyone to carry out remedial work.

Another few questions I have:
1) It has already been over 2 weeks since the issue was first spotted, surely it cant be good for the walls and needs to be sorted asap ?
2) If someone claims x,y and z is the cause of the issue and will cost ££ to fix. Once they carry out the work, do you get some sort of guarantee that it wont manifest again ? Worst scenario in my mind is that I will fork out a few thousands to do the work then few months down the line, the issue will arise again and the person carrying out the work will simply say not my problem.

bibek

Doozergirl wrote: »

No it isn't okay.

I don't know what they put in these chemical damp proof courses, but they don't work. I've seen plenty of those fail too and there's always an initial reason. I'm working on a house bow that was riddled at the back and on internal walls because a patio had been built no less than five courses above the DPC across a length of 10 metres! No new DPC was ever going to stop what was coming in underneath and soaking the whole underneath of the rear of the house. It's outrageous because it was so obvious to me but so many people are completely ignorant to it.

There will be a reason for that damp - it's perfectly likely that it's tracking in from outside. If there is a DPM in the floor then it will take the path up the walls.

If you were already wet and standing in a puddle, you wouldn't put a waterproof coat on. You'd step out of the puddle.

You need to find the source. A picture of the problem areas and your outside walls would be helpful.

Does the house have airbricks? Are all gullies clear? Downpipes discharging properly? Guttering clear? Are your ground levels well below the DPC outside? Any water running downhill towards the house? Where is that draining to?

Not exactly airbricks but same thing, it has those plastic vents along where the airbricks should be. I will double check the downpipes and gullies but can guttering also cause this ? The damp is about a foot or so above the floor so I thought its something come from underneath the floor ?
I have a patio at the back which is quite low (few steps down from the kitchen to patio) however front garden is quite high so I cannot say it is definitely below the DPC. More importantly, how would I check where the DPC line goes across the house ?
Pictures of the affected areas are here on mgur(dot)com/a/GpshmFb, I will get the external wall pictures asap. Away for work for couple of days so will do this on my return.
Also front garden is not 100% flat so i would say some probably does run towards the house (picture of the house from google maps here if it is of any help imgur(dot)com/a/EzdECRK

JimmyChanga wrote: »

Plenty on this subject online. If there are issues with damp then it's down to other factors. I've yet to see a damp proof course failure.
Stay far away from the company that gave you that quote and also don't call any more in. Read up on the reasons for damp first. Typical reasons are poor or faulty drainage. Most times gardens have been paved too high so the existing DPC won't work and/or causing rainwater to be directed towards the property than away from it.

I have someone else confirmed to visit tomorrow and will see what they have to say but I will make sure I do enough research and do the basic troubleshooting before agreeing to any work. Dont really want to take a loan out to fix something thats not even broken!

JimmyChanga

I have a patio at the back which is quite low (few steps down from the kitchen to patio) however front garden is quite high so I cannot say it is definitely below the DPC. More importantly, how would I check where the DPC line goes across the house ?

If it's a brick house the DPC is horizontally along one course of the mortar between the bricks. You'll see the difference between the standard courses of mortar. Usually the face of the bricks below the DPC are in a worse state. Typically you'll have 2 lines of bricks below the DPC before ground level.

In some cases morons have tried to 'make good' by rendering over the face of the bricks from below and above the damp course, allowing bridging of water and thus negating the point of the DPC.

Oh..and yes, guttering issues can also cause damp on your walls.

Doozergirl

https://m.imgur.com/a/EzdECRK

https://m.imgur.com/a/wy4XZ6g

https://m.imgur.com/a/GpshmFb

Doozergirl

Honestly, that report he wrote smells like total BS. Literally no idea.

This might be a really stupid question but are those walls actually made of brick? I'm sure they are, but you can't tell from here.

What's happening by the bathroom?

Has this really come up in two weeks or is that when you've noticed?

Is that laminate or engineered wood? Is it bowing/discolouring/wet?

What's in the cupboard?

Damp on inside walls can be pain, I'm surprised that it's come up that quickly though, it's usually more of a slow burn.