Who is the right professional who can come and advise me about mould and damp and what the cause might be?

[BewareTheBeardedDragon]

I keep getting disgusting mould growing on the carpet along my back wall. I know about ventilation, reducing humidity, furniture placement etc but even where there's no furniture at all it's happening which leads me to suspect that the cause is more complex.

Is there someone who I can pay to come and advise me unbiasedly, without having an interest in selling me anything, and investigate/diagnose the cause and the solution?

I suspect it is a combination of poor/no insulation in that wall, potentially some kind of problem hiding behind the upvc cladding, lack of central heating in that part of the house, but I don't want to go gung ho in following my instincts which might be wrong and lead to expensive and unnecessary work and potentially missing the real problem.

Would a surveyor be the right person? Ime they tend towards the arse covering and lack of clarity - but I need someone who can say it's this and you need to do this this and this.

Help!

@PigletJohn may have a good answer for you

Mould in my home too. In my bedroom I can’t anything pushes up against the walls there has to be at least a 2 foot gap between wall and wardrobe etc. It has helped.
I use a mould wash on the ceilings and pipes in the bathroom. I ventilate every room everyday. It’s so much better than it has been.

probably a Chartered Surveyor

if you have an old house, your council (or a local group) may have a historic buildings officer

IME it's often plumbing and drain leaks.

do not invite anyone who sells silicone injections into your home.

our house has mould issues.

Yours sounds like ours, condensation.
The basic problem is that you have damp air in the house and it will condense on the coldest place. Where-ever and whatever is the coldest. In our house it used to be the wall in dd2s room, and it would get black mould. When that wall was insulated, it stopped condensing there, and the mould stopped. But now the coldest place is round the window in our bedroom and ds room. I have to clean it off regularly.

The only way to stop it is to reduce the dampness in your air, and warm it up.
You need to get a bathroom extractor fan fitted and fix the kitchen one so it goes to the outside. In our house we fotted 4 extractor fans. One in each bathroom, one in the kitchen and one in the utility room where we dry the washing.

Stop drying washing anywhere in the house. Or if you must, one room with an extractor fan or a dehumidifier running and the door closed.

We aslo fitted trickle vents to our windows, and leave them open.

but warning - previous owners had a surveyor in, they said the living room was damp because of rising damp, got the first 1 metre stripped off and tanked etc etc.

Didn't make any difference, but they had no insulation in this room or the bedroom above and had no extractor fans, and no ventilation. The things we did in my post above got rid of most (forgot to say we insulated lounge as well as dds room)

the stripping off and replacing plaster is not the right thing to do if you have condensation damp.

@steppemum

but warning - previous owners had a surveyor in, they said the living room was damp because of rising damp, got the first 1 metre stripped off and tanked etc etc.

Didn't make any difference, but they had no insulation in this room or the bedroom above and had no extractor fans, and no ventilation. The things we did in my post above got rid of most (forgot to say we insulated lounge as well as dds room)

the stripping off and replacing plaster is not the right thing to do if you have condensation damp.

What sort of surveyor?

Some members of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors might not have agreed.

www.architectsjournal.co.uk/archive/rising-damp-is-a-myth-says-former-rics-chief

PigletJohn - I don;t know, I just know they were ripped off!

Our friend who is a chartered surveyer looked at the house for us and told us to start with condensation and ventilation and see if that solved it. It did.

We had a brand new property,had been left empty by the private builder to dry out. We had mould inside,crystals outside above the DC yellow and white. We called out Rentokill, the "damp expert" said it was only the building drying out. Told me to put the heating on full and open windows. I was sure it was rising damp. It was, turned out, builders had forgotten to put the damp proof membrane right at foundation level. Check-a-Trade people pay to be put on their site. Had (bad) dealings with them
They don't post any negative reviews or low scores. So,yes a surveyor with a damp meter.

Trouble is, heating is expensive now,it's being drummed into us to insulate our homes. Yes,you need to extract any warm damp air, extractor fan bathroom and kitchen and a decent dehumidifier. I have one with a clothes drying setting

Op I think you need a chartered building surveyor. RICS but not general practice building division the firm’s website should tell you if they are this

Thanks all - I spoke to a damp surveyor who said I needed a consultant surveyor, which does not appear to be a thing (at least not near me) so I have found a chartered surveyor who does these kinds of surveys on behalf of landlords and is confident that he can find the cause of my issues and advise how to sort them, so I'm going to book him. Fingers crossed...