Damp - help I’ve had 5 different tradespeople tell me 5 different things

[purpletrees16]

I bought a house with damp in the bay window and some suspiciously next to a drain on the side wall and some in a porch. Driveway slopes away but is too high & covers air brick. 1930s

Just had a range of tradespeople (from damp specialists to drainage people) have a look at it and every single one has come away with a different plan. Costs vary but it’s the sort of job where is seems they are going to escalate due to set out exclusions in the quote document but the starting point is £750 to £1500. It’s not so much about the money but about not Messing up the house with chemical injections or bad damp solutions that will be ongoing. House needs decorated etc. but we’re looking to create a safe & warm family home rather than something that looks like in a magazine finish wise so it suits us and we got a great area/space for the price.

I’ve been told not to do chemical injections
To do chemical injections
Not to do french drain as no where for water to go
To do ftench drain as arco drain won’t work with left/right camber and french drain will drain under driveway as there is a camber away from house.
To remove all my skirting immediately
To let my skirting dry out and then replaster & replace damaged in bay and leave the wood.
To flat render the whole bottom front outside (currently painted bricks going to pebble dash.)
To do arco but have a second channel to make the water flow in the right direction.
That the two metal down pipes need immediate replacing
That they are fine and if I do the bathroom extension in a few years I should do then.

Everyone will fix our misaligned drain. Only one company also does guttering cleaning. There’s a crack in the mortar at the side that seems to sit out with everyone’s quotes at the moment.

Trade 1: £750

• clean guttering and sure up leak at end cap
• dig out square around air brick using slope to get water away.
• seal up edge of driveway and wall with triangle of cement (?)
• come back in two months after it’s dried out and re plaster in front room.

Trade 2: £1350
-arco drain along front

• seal up edge around with plastic triangle.

Trade 3: ??
-arco drain but also a drainage channel as this guy took more measurements and thinks that it will have to left rather than right and therefore need a second run off channel to get the water away

Trade 3: ??
French drain
Arco drain on straight bit
Fix mortar by making crack bigger & filling in

Trade 4: £1500
Reseal the front with smooth render 1.2m & Waterproof it
Damp injections
Remove all skirting along hall (original and screwed in apparently - going to be hard to replicate.)
Replaster bay (lots of provisions in this pit)

Any advice would be well received!!!

Tempted to do small to start with and see if that dries it out and then next year can do more. We’ve got money to sink into the house but no rush for everything to be completed -just safe for dog & 2 years till kid.

Yep, I'm waiting on the pics too!

Picture time! Sorry it was too dark to do last night.

Bay window (air brick is in the ground).
Damage to plaster skirting in this room.

Porch

Wall & drain (inside lines up)

Further along wall to kitchen (though no damp readings here but looks damaged so I am keen on getting repaired.)

Guttering drains through pipes. No visible wet bits on the walls during rain (walls protected by ledge so dry.)

On survey - I put an email out to a couple - - one came back saying they don’t do my area and one hasn’t replied!

Checkatrade seems to send me the same tradespeople when I tried searching through there with my postcode.

And to the person that implied we weren’t going to get it fixed - we didn’t get 5 people to come round not to! We were just expecting some consensus. Though I must admit most family have stayed in houses for excess of 20+ years and they do have some damp... but didn’t in the 70s/80s/90s when bought so it’s quite a common issue that people only deal with when selling it seems. But then they aren’t mortgaged up anymore.

Thoughts-
The painted brick is highly likely to be a waterproof masonry paint which would prevent water from evaporating to the outside meaning all moisture that gets to the brick can only go inwards.
The render above the ledge might be letting water in where it will go it's merry way until it finds a way out, but the render won't let it out that way so again any that gets in is forced inwards.
There is an amount of moss on the ground below the drain pipe in one picture that isn't elsewhere suggesting that water is hitting the ground there not going down the drain which might be making the ground in that area damp. Old houses often don't have anything to stop them sucking ground damp up.
The picture with the hanging basket on it shows a joint of some sort (but it's out of shot) which if water is getting in there it could trickle down the split in the render and end up at the bottom where it will speak through the brick.
Once damp has been present for a good while it will have transported mineral salts into the building fabric which then attract moisture so as part of helping the building be dry a neutralising treatment for any salts would be helpful.

You can test the plaster for salts to know

Looking at the bay window

I'd start by getting the paint blasted off the bricks. This will aid evaporation from the bricj surface, and will also make visible and defects in the brick and mortar.

The drain gully appears to be a clay one, and is pretty certain to have been cracked and leaking water into the ground for the past 80 years. It needs to be dug out and replaced wih new, and probably the clat pipe it joins to will also be snapped at the first bend. This is normal. I am told there is a prewar house somewhere in the country that does not have a cracked clay gully, but I have never seen it.

The ground level of the paving is obviously too high. You can see it reaches to the airbrick. This is quite normal when pavig is laid by people who are too stupid to know what a DPC or an airbrick is; or don't care. I can't see the DPC, but even if it is not bridged, the high level of the paving will allow rain to splash up onto the brickwork. The paving needs to be lifted beside the house, and a trench about a foot deep and a foot wide dug. Very likely this will allow the brickwork to dry out. You can lay an Acco or make a French drain if you want. I doubt it was needed when the house was new so is probablt not needed now. To prevent you falling into the trench, you can fill it with cobbles or large pebbles (hens-egg or bigger). Not gravel. The large size of the stones allows free-draining and prevents water rising by capillary action. Line the trench with geofabric to prevent mud or earth getting in and clogging the stones. If you prefer, you could take up all the paving and reduce the ground level back to where it should be.

p.s.

Once you have found the dpc, use a wire brush to scratch the paint off the mortar joint all round the house so you can see where it is. It will be nine inches (two bricks) above where the ground level used to be when the house was built. Unless the house is built on sloping gound it will be at the same level all round the house. (I have a feeling you will find it has been bridged or compromised all round the house.) Your cast-iron and clay drains will all be cracked at the first joint where they turn from vertical to horizontal under the surface. You can get your builder to dig them all up and renew while the ground level is being lowered. This is quite normal in 1930's houses.

I'd also lay a new water supply pipe, in 25mm or 32mm, all the way out to the pavement, while you have the spade out, because in a house of that age it will probably be iron, rusty, and either already leaking, or about to start. It's hard to tell because you have so much water and damp from the drains, but if you have a water meter or sharp ears you can detect it.

Finally

Chekortrad is not a consumer recommendation site. It is an advertising site. People pay to be listed. It is useful to know that good established builders create a local reputation and boast that they never need to advertise because they get so much repeat business and personal recommendations via friends and neighbours of satisfied customers.

Look up "chekortrad complaints" and see what you find.

It is interesting to know that chekortrad employs lawyers to harass websites (including this one) that carry critical comments.

Can I ask a question- on the internet not making your house waterproof seems to be the most important thing... why is it that when you get people in making Waterproof is the way to go?

Also is the drain gully on the shared drive? (Tarmac)?

Neighbours are having an extension in June and want to as part of that get the driveway redone for which since we’ve lived here a week we’ve yet to have a serious convo about (though knew about the extension.)

Is this something we’d get done then?

PS: is a builder what we need? Or is it some other trade?

I now see your deliberate misspelling - you can’t delete on mumsnet:

I’ve ask the neighbours but they’ve only given me people to avoid! And friends don’t need builders & family is wales/midlands/Scotland though I do have a relative nearby but the last time she did any building work was the 80s - though she also has a roofer to avoid!

What an interesting thread.
What are you going to do now OP.

I too have damp problems. Nothing like yours though!

So far actions have been to put more effort into getting a damp survey - DH has found a firm willing to quote.

Second action has been to wallow a bit. I don’t care much for redoing the front of the drive if it can’t be avoided so a trench is fine. At moment we park on the shared drive so we’d only need the front if we got a second car. Unlikely considering DH can’t drive.

Ok we have now booked a damp survey for 2 weeks time.

We lost out in a closed bids (over estimated our ftb status) for a more done up house on the street so we know what our house can absorb in terms of costs and knew it required work... if you search me you can find me crying about losing out. Our house has some advantages in terms of position on the road that balance out the smaller garden. But I completely underestimated how making decisions about these things is!

It took me 4 days to carefully select the optimal washing machine - it would be fantastic to find a builder I can trust so I can offload this to.

if you are new to the district, have a look in the Parish Magazine or equivalent. Local businesses that are well-established often advertise there, sometimes as a way of community support, and would probably not be allowed to continue if they wrecked the homes of the congregation or had a reputation for overcharging.

Builder.

You would also benefit from additional airbricks, which a builder can easily do. Modern practice is to have more. One every two metres is not too many. Unblock the old ones. You want a good airflow throughout the void. When you have a look into the void, clear away any rubble or rubbish, which holds damp and canencourage rot.

I would second all pigletjohns advice get the paint off to let and bricks breathe, drain could be leaking, and the ground level outside is too high. A french drain would not be enough I don’t think , I’d lower it to at least 2 bricks below the dpc/ air bricks.

I’d make sure the air bricks are clear. You can take them out to check behind and then cement them back in.

Also after you have done all that I would remove the skirting and let it dry out properly for as long as possible.

@purpletrees16

Can I ask a question- on the internet not making your house waterproof seems to be the most important thing... why is it that when you get people in making Waterproof is the way to go?

Also is the drain gully on the shared drive? (Tarmac)?

Neighbours are having an extension in June and want to as part of that get the driveway redone for which since we’ve lived here a week we’ve yet to have a serious convo about (though knew about the extension.)

Is this something we’d get done then?

House building techniques changed a lot post-war. A lot of destruction meant a lot of building were needed in short time, so that most houses built after the war were with mass produced/new types of materials such as concrete and plastic dpc etc... Buildings were dry because they were built to keep the water out, cavity walls etc so most people in the building trade know and understand that system very well and often have poor understanding/low opinion of anything else. They know those materials so recommend them. But pre-war houses were mostly built differently, locally available materials either geologically or the local brick factory, hence you go to different parts of the country and you get different looking buildings... If they are old enough. Yellow Cotswolds etc. The old boys who knew and understood those materials and handed their knowledge down father-son/apprentice were often lost in the war or their knowledge no longer applied s to the new mode. Those buildings were dry because they sent water away from the building / allowed it to escape easily.... The two systems don't mix well. So along comes a modern builder who is awesome at the latter type of building and doesn't appreciate the distended and sees waterproof methods as the answer to all ills. There are people who appreciate the difference (and 'get' old methods) but they aren't common and people tend to understand one or three other to expert level. Tricky to get that in a nutshell without over simplifying but that's the gist

People who take the trouble to understand their building and choose solutions which are sympathetic get great results and are keen advocates... People who don't know but think the local builder does might go down the wrong road and it takes ages to realise you're barking up the wrong tree because it often seems better for a while. Or they have inherited bad solutions from previous occupants so just curse that horrible old building that's bound to be damp.
But the wrong solution just pushed the problem along and you need another and another. Like my friend who tanked her basement and its lovely and dry... But now she has rising damp in the lounge...
It's like having curly hair and spending all your life trying to make it be straight. Just style it fabulously curly.

Sorry for millions of typos

Just make sure your damp surveyor understands your building type and if they start recommending tackling symptoms not causes, back away. I think piglet John's advice is spot on.