DIY damp proofing

Felicityfandangle

Has anybody tried diy damp proof injection? 

FreeBear

Felicityfandangle said:

Has anybody tried diy damp proof injection? 

No.

It is a waste of time and money. The stuff doesn't work.

If you have a problem with damp, fix it at the source rather than trying to put a sticking plaster over it to hide the issue.

flashg67

From experience, the damp issues I have had to sort in old Victorian terraces have been due to leaking gutters/downpipes, cement rendering  trapping moisture in, roof leaks, or condensation.  You can hire the kit to do DIY injection, but a long time ago, a plasterer admitted to me it was the waterproofing they added to the plaster afterwards that mostly stopped it coming back.  It's messy, hard work so check out other possible damp sources first!

Doozergirl

FreeBear said:

Felicityfandangle said:

Has anybody tried diy damp proof injection? 

No.

It is a waste of time and money. The stuff doesn't work.

If you have a problem with damp, fix it at the source rather than trying to put a sticking plaster over it to hide the issue.

Just to add to this.  The 'professional' stuff doesn't work either.  It's not a comment on DIYing, per say, it's the whole 'waterproofing' industry.   It's all snake oil.  

If you want to post up details of your specific problem, I am sure we can help.  

Felicityfandangle

Felicityfandangle

Hi thanks for responding. I've uploaded a couple of pics. It's a porch with solid floor and the wall is shared with next door. Also solid floor. The house is 100 years old ish so there's no cavity? Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks  

kevinphilips

It looks like from 2 of the pictures that there is a pipe running down that wall....?  Is that true....?  
The other picture which doesn't appear to have a pipe - is that the opposite wall...?  What is outside - do you have picture of the outside ...?

Felicityfandangle

Hi the thing that looks like a pipe is the inside door frame. It's literally a tiny square storm porch. Just big enough to get the outside door open. On the bottom picture you can just see the outside door on the right and the inside door on the left. The middle pic is the other side. So outside is on the left. It's my daughters house I'll get her to send more pics  

FreeBear

Felicityfandangle said: Hi thanks for responding. I've uploaded a couple of pics. It's a porch with solid floor and the wall is shared with next door. Also solid floor. The house is 100 years old ish so there's no cavity? Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks  

Photos of the outside ?

If it is anything like my porch, single skin brick, concrete floor with zero insulation or DPM - Always going to be damp during the winter months and blistering hot in the summer.

kevinphilips

I'm curious to see how it has been built and what is outside.  If it is a storm porch - has it been built with a cavity or is it just built on the existing floor....?  Not suggesting rising damp (before they come and attack me as I am also a non-believer)  but if it has been built on a floor without any damp protection, then the marks suggest that moisture is pooling with no means of drying out on the coldest part of the wall.  Good news is that is should be relatively easy to remedy (if it is single brick then add some ventilation and let it dry out) and if it is cavity then make sure that nothing is above the DPC on both skins of wall.  

Either way it looks like hacking it off and looking at the material underneath and then deciding if ventilation or DPC is the problem.  Go for the source every time - no need to inject creams or materials unless any form of DPC is missing altogether.  A few weeks drying out in the warmer months could solve this for the colder months and for many years.