House built 1751 - Rising Damp

JustAnotherSaver

Doozergirl said:

Really, don't. 

neilmcl said:

Only if you want to waste a load of money.

Why do you say this?

The OPs situation is different to mine but I went with a damp proofing company as we had issue in our house with damp making the wallpaper bubble and salts show in the plaster etc.

We went with a recommended builder who claimed they could damp proof but couldn't. We got stung to £1500. Mould started growing where they dotted and dabbed. Got a bit of a refund, did some actual research and whether it was accurate or not we went with a damp proofing company who seemed to be approaching the job the way i had read online the job should be approached. We're maybe about 5 years or so in now and the problem isn't showing so it seems that it's been sorted.

Doozergirl

JustAnotherSaver said:

Doozergirl said:

Really, don't. 

neilmcl said:

Only if you want to waste a load of money.

Why do you say this?

The OPs situation is different to mine but I went with a damp proofing company as we had issue in our house with damp making the wallpaper bubble and salts show in the plaster etc.

We went with a recommended builder who claimed they could damp proof but couldn't. We got stung to £1500. Mould started growing where they dotted and dabbed. Got a bit of a refund, did some actual research and whether it was accurate or not we went with a damp proofing company who seemed to be approaching the job the way i had read online the job should be approached. We're maybe about 5 years or so in now and the problem isn't showing so it seems that it's been sorted.

Read the last post by the OP.  With a bit of research, they've found the source of the problem.  It's not a failed damp proof course, it's a basic lack of maintenance and some
dubious decisions made with updates to/around the property.  It's always that.  

Injected DPCs do nothing.  It's the render they put on the inside that doesn't stop the problem, just covers it in concrete render. 

I get bored of explaining the same stories over and over again, but I've seen it all now and it's not theory, it's a fact.  I've seen walls with multiple attempts at injections.  
The injections do nothing and many of the people administering them are either ignorant or blatantly ignore the obvious source and just leave the ingress to continue behind the internal render.

neilmcl

Doozergirl said:

Injected DPCs do nothing.

I'd go further than that and say injected chemical DPCs actually do more harm in the long run.

FreeBear

Doozergirl said: The injections do nothing and many of the people administering them are either ignorant or blatantly ignore the obvious source and just leave the ingress to continue behind the internal render.

But sometimes, just sometimes, the people doing the injection treatment lower the ground level in the problem area and inadvertently fix the root cause.

Apodemus

FreeBear said:

Doozergirl said: The injections do nothing and many of the people administering them are either ignorant or blatantly ignore the obvious source and just leave the ingress to continue behind the internal render.

But sometimes, just sometimes, the people doing the injection treatment lower the ground level in the problem area and inadvertently fix the root cause.

Indeed!  ...and most of the time, they install new pressure-treated battons and plaster board that will mask the problem for just long enough for their guarantee to run out!

JustAnotherSaver

Doozergirl said:

JustAnotherSaver said:

Doozergirl said:

Really, don't. 

neilmcl said:

Only if you want to waste a load of money.

Why do you say this?

The OPs situation is different to mine but I went with a damp proofing company as we had issue in our house with damp making the wallpaper bubble and salts show in the plaster etc.

We went with a recommended builder who claimed they could damp proof but couldn't. We got stung to £1500. Mould started growing where they dotted and dabbed. Got a bit of a refund, did some actual research and whether it was accurate or not we went with a damp proofing company who seemed to be approaching the job the way i had read online the job should be approached. We're maybe about 5 years or so in now and the problem isn't showing so it seems that it's been sorted.

Read the last post by the OP.  With a bit of research, they've found the source of the problem.  It's not a failed damp proof course, it's a basic lack of maintenance and some
dubious decisions made with updates to/around the property.  It's always that.  

Injected DPCs do nothing.  It's the render they put on the inside that doesn't stop the problem, just covers it in concrete render. 

I get bored of explaining the same stories over and over again, but I've seen it all now and it's not theory, it's a fact.  I've seen walls with multiple attempts at injections.  
The injections do nothing and many of the people administering them are either ignorant or blatantly ignore the obvious source and just leave the ingress to continue behind the internal render.

Maybe i misunderstood you then? As i was under the impression you were calling out all damp proof workers and against damp proof work in general with an everything is fixable viewpoint.

I can only talk about my own experience with damp proof work and nobody elses. The first cowboys put about a half metre band of whateverthehellitwas on the party wall and called it job done.

The guys that appear to have sorted the issue where we have a useable living room installed a sump pump, renewed the flooring, hit the walls with salt washes and various Sovereign products, tanking slurry and specific breathable render. Injections were also used.

To take the viewpoint of all damp work is bad and everything is fixable (like i say, i may have misunderstood you, it's entirely possible) - we have a ton of water under our living room floor. One approach would be to solid floor the whole lot ... but then the water has to go somewhere. It doesn't just cease to exist. It may create an extremely boggy driveway and garden, it may pop the paving slabs up, it may run up the walls if the solid floor isn't done right. I wasn't about to have a £12k gamble.

We also got in touch with various organisations who had done work in the area in the 70s-90s and the advice was to summarise - you wont fix the water issue. It comes from streams. You can only manage it.

So rightly or wrongly and based on our budget, that's the approach we took.