Where is this damp coming from? (with pics) 17 January at 4:13PM in In my home (includes DIY) MoneySaving 45 replies 1.8K views

markin

I just got to the end of that thread and it was live rubbing through the face screw, But i knew it was that socket lol

Doozergirl

diystarter7 said:

markin said:

I found the source of your tripping power!

Exactly what I thought when I asked if that was a damp patch I could see on OP's other thread.

These damp treatments are often nt that great and do break down. IMO its a combination of poor dampproof work and possibly a bit of repair outside

OP, FYI, I am no expert in this areas but vast knowledge of owning, looking after our properties, doing them up, helping the kids etc have given some ideas and times these ideas do help me and my family/friends et.

Thanks

The fact that there is an injected damp proof course in the area just goes to show that most 'damp proofing specialists' have no idea what they are doing. I've come across stuff like this, and far more obvious time and time again both at work and on these boards.  

If the problem does turn out to to be penetrating damp at a height of 1-2 feet then nothing they attempt to do at ground level is going to work, but so many people have zero interest in the source of the issue, they just sell their product.  

Aside from not bothering to find the source of a problem, injected DPCs do nothing.  It's not a case of them breaking down, they do nothing.   The damp only appears to be solved because they use a waterproof render on the inside to a height of 1m.   What usually happens is that over a long period of time the damp eventually breaches that metre mark.  

There is always a reason for damp and there is, frankly, never a need for a useless injected DPC.  I canMt get my head around anything water based is supposed to repel water, even!  

stuart45

That building looks young enough to have an original DPC, but it's probably got buried over the years by rising ground levels.

silvercar

In my defence, I inherited that damp course. Don’t know if there was an original damp course, property was built in 1930s. My previous workman recommended moving the guttering outlet away from the wall to reduce the amount of water near the wall. Probably didn’t do much good, though was harmless. If I am filling in the holes in the render, do I need to wait for the area to dry out? What do I use for filling it? Also, what would I use for beading between the render and brick?

diystarter7

Hi

In my experience houses we have bought/lived in build from about 1932, depending on builder are often built very well and have slate like MPC which is excellent.  First time I saw this was around 30+ yrs ago moved to a new house and was doing a total refurb shile we lived in it and we've torn out floor bit by bit and replaced and I decided to double the airbrick sizes, number/capacit etc - it was then i noted the slate-like DPC

injection rarely works as Dozegirls said and good ones will temp work. I'm not sure what the solution is

One of our kids bought a 1960's detached house - no damp whatsoever but i noted to the front the drive, newsih drive and the flower bed in front of the front windows was at, almost at air brick level - we took that down to below the dpc.

Over the years and new drives etc and the way the drives fall, at times leades to drives/soil being higher than dpc and lots of water going towards walls rather than away from it

Thanks

GDB2222

@silvercar

Did you sort out the tripping MCB problem, because that photo shows wet plaster just where the power sockets are?  If moisture is getting into the sockets, it may well cause a short circuit.

FreeBear

silvercar said: Don’t know if there was an original damp course, property was built in 1930s.

There will be a DPC  They have been mandated since Victorian times. Quite likely yours is a poured bitumastic or felt. Most likely location is just below the air bricks (assuming suspended timber floor) or in line with the bottom of the doors.

silvercar

GDB2222 said:

@silvercar

Did you sort out the tripping MCB problem, because that photo shows wet plaster just where the power sockets are?  If moisture is getting into the sockets, it may well cause a short circuit.

I did post back.

turned out that that particular socket plate had a live wire caught in the screw hole! The wire had deteriorated enough that the bare wires were exposed causing it to short. Complete coincidence that it was that socket, but made it an easy find as that was the first one the electrician looked at!

silvercar

FreeBear said:

silvercar said: Don’t know if there was an original damp course, property was built in 1930s.

There will be a DPC  They have been mandated since Victorian times. Quite likely yours is a poured bitumastic or felt. Most likely location is just below the air bricks (assuming suspended timber floor) or in line with the bottom of the doors.

Solid floors. Probably our ground level is now too high. 

Section62

diystarter7 said:

In my experience houses we have bought/lived in build from about 1932, depending on builder are often built very well and have slate like MPC which is excellent.  First time I saw this was around 30+ yrs ago moved to a new house and was doing a total refurb shile we lived in it and we've torn out floor bit by bit and replaced and I decided to double the airbrick sizes, number/capacit etc - it was then i noted the slate-like DPC

By the 1930's most properties were being built with bitumen-based DPC's.  Some old-timers may have continued to use slate, and in areas where slate was a locally-won material (e.g. not London or the SE) its use perhaps lingered longer than elsewhere. But generally speaking a 1930 onwards property is likely to have a bituminous DPC, until the era were polythene-based DPC's became the norm.

Sometimes it is difficult for the inexperienced eye to tell the difference between slate and bituminous DPC's.  The latter often harden and fade with age, giving a slate-like appearance.