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Original poster

Rising damp advice please

35 replies

Freespirit44 · 30/09/2024 16:27

Apologies for posting here. I need to make a decision pretty soon so I'm here for traffic and advice!
We live in a 1950s semi and have damp patches in several places. Two patches on the wall of the covered up chimney,(downstairs living room) this backs onto our neighbours kitchen wall.
two in separate areas of the kitchen. (One on the wall backing a downstairs WC, the other on the wall backing our garden)

We had a damp proofing company round today and they quoted just under £9k to get it sorted. This would include injections, protective membranes to make it more solid, vents in almost every room.
He said that it's rising damp due to an old damp course eroding and that due to houses moving etc over the years, water is seeping through. He said it's definitely not a water leak.

Any advice around wether or not I should go for it would be greatly appreciated.
@pigletjohn if you are around, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Also, I would welcome any suggestions about having vents in every room. This is a new concept for Me and I'm out of my comfort zone with all this!

Thank you.

Rising damp advice please
Rising damp advice please
Rising damp advice please
Rising damp advice please
OP posts:
Hunglikeapolevaulter · 30/09/2024 17:05

Don't get a so-called damp specialist out, they will, as you have seen, simply want to sell you these expensive "treatments" that may not fix the issue and might make things worse.

You need to find the source of the problem - it is a leak somewhere, or poor drainage? What they are wanting to sell you will potentially actually trap water where you don't want it and give you mould issues.

GPTec1 · 30/09/2024 17:03

Stand a brick in water and see if the water goes up more than an inch above the water line?

Most damp issues are caused leaking roofs, chimney flashing or pointing in and around the pot, poor ventilation, cold spots, blocked gutterings, incorrectly sealed windows/sills, ground level above any wall ventilation.

Bricked up fire places should have an air vent & a breathable chimney cover.

OhmygodDont · 30/09/2024 17:00

Have you not ever had any of the downstairs floors up? Ours are concrete solid it’s on the efficiency rating on what we could improve to make it more energy efficient

Original poster
Freespirit44 · 30/09/2024 16:59

@Ziplob I don't know if it's timber. Not an ex council house.

OP posts:
OhmygodDont · 30/09/2024 16:56

Just reread your post again and for some reason totally missed the chimney duh.

Id get that checked first by a roofer / chimney chap. It could be that you’ve got water in that. The pointing could be gone or it’s not capped and the water is running down the chimney breast and then settling more at the bottom looking like it’s rising. Also does the blocked breast have any air bricks so let it breath?

Back wall to a garden again could be pointing issue. Our pointing is shot in places and needs redoing.

schloss · 30/09/2024 16:51

Under no circumstances get damp companies to quote or test for damp who sell damp treatments.

I would say rising damp is not strictly true but you need to find the actual causes of the issues. Some of the photos look like salts coming through the walls.

You need to search for every possible cause from leaking downpipes, condensation in chimney or leaking chimney bricks. Ground level higher than the house. There could be lots of reasons.

Go onto SPAB and read their damp leaflets.

Ziplob · 30/09/2024 16:44

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

OhmygodDont · 30/09/2024 16:41

Freespirit44 · 30/09/2024 16:40

@OhmygodDont I would but the majority charge for just coming out to see you. This one cost £90, others range up to £500. I'm looking for someone to get to the source of the problem. We had someone come out free of charge and he took one look and said, yep I'll stich that up for £1700 and didn't even wave his damp checking machine thingy at all the walls!!

Ah yeah not so easy then. Definitely don’t want bodge it Bob either.

Original poster
Freespirit44 · 30/09/2024 16:40

@OhmygodDont I would but the majority charge for just coming out to see you. This one cost £90, others range up to £500. I'm looking for someone to get to the source of the problem. We had someone come out free of charge and he took one look and said, yep I'll stich that up for £1700 and didn't even wave his damp checking machine thingy at all the walls!!

OP posts:
OhmygodDont · 30/09/2024 16:35

I’d get a few different opinions. We have just had 10 different tradesmen’s out to diagnose an issue in our equally old house and only one pointed out the bloody obvious that everyone else had overlooked. With one quoting over 10k for scaffolding alone 😬