How do I know if I can trust my damp surveyor?

FreeBear

Arghbloodyhouse said: yes they're a PCA member.

They don't do other types of damp proofing, only chemical injections, so I'm not massively comfortable going with them anyway.

So a "surveyor" from a company that does damp "treatments" - Sorry to say, but you have paid for a sales pitch, so you are right to doubt the "report".

You have gypsum plaster on the walls - When this stuff gets slightly damp for any length of time, the gypsum dissolves and you are left with a crumbling mush. I suspect that the property may have had damp "treatments" inflicted on it in the past - The picture of the hole is pointing that way.

Traditionally, a lime plaster would have been used which is much better in areas where damp might be a reoccurring problem.

Doozergirl

So the cellar is dripping wet and he doesn't think that's a problem?

I have to work, but can you see daylight in
there?  Cellars desperately need to be ventilated and really shouldn't be covered in  tanking slurry either.  I think your house has a classic case of being suffocated by modern cement based and chemical treatments.  It's make it far worse than it needs to be. 

Arghbloodyhouse

Doozergirl said:

So the cellar is dripping wet and he doesn't think that's a problem?

I have to work, but can you see daylight in
there?  Cellars desperately need to be ventilated and really shouldn't be covered in  tanking slurry either.  I think your house has a classic case of being suffocated by modern cement based and chemical treatments.  It's make it far worse than it needs to be. 

No daylight. It has two vents that I can see. One on a wall just above ground level and one in the door that goes through to the kitchen.

Doozergirl

Arghbloodyhouse said:

Doozergirl said:

So the cellar is dripping wet and he doesn't think that's a problem?

I have to work, but can you see daylight in
there?  Cellars desperately need to be ventilated and really shouldn't be covered in  tanking slurry either.  I think your house has a classic case of being suffocated by modern cement based and chemical treatments.  It's make it far worse than it needs to be. 

No daylight. It has two vents that I can see. One on a wall just above ground level and one in the door that goes through to the kitchen.

But you can't see light from them? 

Does that correspond with the rendered plinth outside? 

daveyjp

A back to back near me has just had the lounge 'treated'.  1m hack, goo inject, replaster.  If they had reopened the chimney and stopped drying clothes on racks in there they could have saved themselves a pretty penny and actually cured the problem!

neilmcl

My dad's neighbour was practically blackmailed into paying for a damp "survey" and subsequently having to have the injected DPC installed when he was selling their house. They felt they had no choice because the buyer (or more likely their mortgage provider) would've pulled out of the sale. It's a complete rip off and in nearly all cases, unnecessary and it's about time it's sorted.

Arghbloodyhouse

Thanks everybody for your help so far - below are pictures of the kitchen (best l could get, it's very narrow), cellar door, air vent and outside. The damp is where the outside walls meet in a right angle (the white outdoor wall is a garden/yard wall) 

Arghbloodyhouse

Doozergirl said:

Arghbloodyhouse said:

Doozergirl said:

So the cellar is dripping wet and he doesn't think that's a problem?

I have to work, but can you see daylight in
there?  Cellars desperately need to be ventilated and really shouldn't be covered in  tanking slurry either.  I think your house has a classic case of being suffocated by modern cement based and chemical treatments.  It's make it far worse than it needs to be. 

No daylight. It has two vents that I can see. One on a wall just above ground level and one in the door that goes through to the kitchen.

But you can't see light from them? 

Does that correspond with the rendered plinth outside? 

You might be able to see in the picture above the air vent is next to the shed just above the rendering. 

Sorry I misunderstood what you meant by light. It comes through the vent in the door but on the wall it's almost closed on the inside and I didn't see light shining through when it was daylight (see pictures above). 

Doozergirl

If the damp is where that painted wall is, then the painted wall is your problem in that area.  You can see the green all around the edges of the wall.  It's an obvious area for ingress.  

The shed is also tipping water straight back onto the wall of the house.  

Any vents you have need to be open and the cellar needs to be well ventilated with ooen air bricks at the front and back of the house, creating a through draft.  There shouldn't
be a render plinth around the edge of the house.  

I feel like you really do need to spend on a proper surveyor that specialises in old buildings because I think there's a lot of places where this is going wrong and it would help you to understand your house a lot better and how it should work.    Where do you live, roughly? 

Thankfully, most of the things I'm reading and seeing aren't expensive fixes in themselves, but there are quite a dew things ringing a bell for me and there will probably be more.  If you can stop it bow and learn how to prevent it in the future, then money on a really good surveyor would be worth it. 

 

Arghbloodyhouse

Thanks! I'm in West Yorkshire. How can I tell if someone is a good surveyor?