If you’re buying a house, learn from my mistake

[KylieWasHere]

Found a house we loved. Got survey. Showed some damp that needed attention but it wasn’t classed as critical. We thought “all old houses have damp”. We’re now potentially looking at between £5k-£15k to fix the damp - might be rising damp, might be due to cement repointing of external walls.

i would literally kick myself for not getting a damp specialist survey - don’t make the same mistake I did 😫

Glad I saw your post. I've just had a homebuyers report done which mentions damp. Vendors have had work done to resolve it but I'm asking for a report in what was was done and a guarantee. Sorry you're in that position.

@gonnabeok from all the research I’ve done, even if they’ve had damp proofing, I still wouldn’t accept it. Damp proofing is a scam. Find an independent surveyor that does NOT offer you services to fix the damp, and get a report from them instead.

Ventilation solved this for us completely.
trickle vents, fans etc.
£500 instead of £18000!

Yes I read up a lot on it and some people were saying that humidifiers and ventilation solved their problems too.

We had a damp course and replastering done as naive FTBs. Which of course didn’t work in an old house, because we effectively sealed the damp in.
This time we went for a surveyor specialising in old properties and he advised a series of steps starting with ventilation (£500) and revisits to see how that was going before more extensive and expensive measures. It’s been held up by Covid and the boom in the building trade but that’s what we’re doing now.

I would never leave damp uninvestigated by a specialist surveyor again, if we were to buy another property.

@KylieWasHere I wouldn't trust that quote! You'd be amazed at the number of damp companies that come up with "solutions" like injections/damp proofing etc... none of which will solve your problem as it just covers it up. Old houses need to breathe - and the cure in majority of cases os ventilation. That's where you need to be looking.

@Butterfly44 one of the quotes is around £12k to replace all of the cement pointing on one external wall. We’re hoping ventilation alone will work, and we’ll certainly give that a good try before going down this route!

When we bought this place, a 'damp survey' told us we needed. IIRC, about 12 grand's worth of DPC injection, tanking, plus the cost of replastering over the tanking.
We thought that sounded like total bullcrap, and that the problem was most likely ventilation as the house was stuffy when we visited and being heated with a very old gas fire full blast, and bought regardless. We had a proper survey done after purchase by a historic buildings expert.
His verdict- every single thing the 'damp proofing' experts said would have either done nothing or made matters much worse.
His advice, ventilate, remove wallpaper and paint lime plaster walls with breathable claypaint, clear underflooor vents which were blocked, remove plastic sheeting from under the house, replace the gutters and piping, and check all the drains for leaks. In the room where there was 'waterproofing' on the plaster to about 1m high, sand it off. Now that's done (bar some of the decorating) the house has gone from damp to dry. We relaid all the drains this year in plastic, as the old ceramic ones were 100 years old and we saw no point patching them, which also sorted out rainwater which was getting under the house. We have done none whatsoever of the stuff the original company advised. ASnd have spent much, much less.
He also advised a list of other minor things, which we have mostly done, like replacing the useless cooker hood with one that works, and replacing the ill-advised cement pointing and going back to lime as it had originally been (not done yet- that's my next job, but the house has dried out without that being done anyway).
Those damproofing companies are IMO often little better than crooks. One family member bought an old brick terraced house. He had a new DPC because of one of those reports. When he came to sell, a company advised his buyer he needed a new DPC. It was the same company that had supposedly put one in only about three years earlier.
A useful source for help is the Heritage House website.

All surveys say check for damp. We went to the expense of getting a damp survey but even the damp surveyor told us it would probably be a waste of time unless the flat was on the ground floor. Ours was an attic flat and as he predicted he could find no sign of damp. Lucky he was honest but we did pay for his survey.

What are your walls made of?

@BlueMongoose
Would you happen to have that specialists details....he's exactly what we need!

We had a victorian house. Loads of damp problems for years. We uncovered an old fireplace behind a wall and fitted a wood burner. Damp disappeared. Just mentioning in case helpful!

We have a period property with various Damo issues - after almost being scammed we’ve learned to :
find out where damp is coming from (leaky guttering)
stop the cause (fix guttering)
dry out (dehumidifier)

this worked in 4 rooms with very bad damp issues for us!

Please all learn from my non-damp related mistake too.

If you're buying a leasehold double and triple check they your solicitor has checked the property being sold against the lease, and check that correlates with the paperwork the freeholder holds too.
L

Mumsnet meet Peter Ward.

He's moved on to another job with a private client, but the company he worked for when he did our survey is Heritage House. They may be able to find someone to help. www.heritage-house.org/
Lots of advice on their website too, well worth reading it.

(Heritage House is the company of Peter Ward, in the video posted by concernedrepurplehouse above)

@BlueMongoose thanks for the detailed response, I think that’s where I’d like to get to. I am hoping that small changes (such as digging out front garden so it’s not so close to the brick level) will make the house dry, and then when we have a bit more money we can have the whole house repointed in lime.

@Twiglets1 we did have a full building survey which showed some damp. What I am annoyed is that I didn’t explore it further, didn’t get a damp specialist to look at it and maybe we would have found out about the cement pointing…! Lesson learnt…

I have emailed heritage house to see if they can come do a survey. I also found a guy called Simon (damp surveys London) who has amazing reviews, he seems to take the approach of just finding the root cause and not try to upset you damp proofing!

Sometimes it's as simple as soil/plant build up along the outside wall, leaking guttering etc.

I hope sorting out your ventilation works.

My advice is don’t buy a house that needs ANY work unless you can (and will) not only do the bulk of it yourselves, but do it well.

Just an update many months later… it wasn’t rising damp. Beware of “independent damp inspectors” that try to sell you damp proofing!

we paid £500 to a reputable, truly independent surveyor, that doesn’t sell any products. He said we don’t have rising damp, we don’t need to repoint the whole house. We just needed to fix an external drain, and stop drying our washing inside. We bought a new dryer, and a dehumidifier for our bedroom, and our house is now dry and damp free, and has been since last winter!

The guy who came was Simon from Damp Surveys London - thoroughly recommended!

Great update OP, well done! This is why mumsnet is so helpful 👍