Damp survey - how much?

[ALittleBitAhAh]

We have patches of damp in the house. I want to arrange a survey - but just wondering in the ball park of how much I should be expecting to pay? Are there different 'levels' of survey? Thanks!

A damp survey with thermal imaging would be the most accurate. I had one a few years ago, and it prevented me from purchasing the property as the issues were so bad.

My damp survey was around £350 for a two bed flat in the south east around three years ago.

I paid £240 for a 3 bed semi in London. I would make sure you use someone independent and not attached to a company that just wants to sell you damp proofing solutions.

Definitely agree with this. I had a damp "expert" come in and gave me an invoice for £6K to put a DPC in. It's a scam. They totally ignored the pointing was cement and not lime mortar which was causing some of the issues.

Useful information

www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/the-fraud-of-rising-damp.html

Sorry estimate not invoice

Thanks all.

Checking out the link now @Mercurial123 We're in a Victorian terrace, and I'm on a Facebook page where people go on about rising damp being a con! I'll ask on a local page for recommendations of independent surveyors.

I second that. We had them survey our house after we bought (during the buying process we had a 'damp-proofing company' do a survey and even I could tell it was a load of old rubbish- e.g., insisting it needed an injected DPC - a terrible idea- and tanking- an even worse idea- in fact the few bits of the house that had had some half-arsed tanking done in the past were the dampest, and they dried out and stayed dry after we removed the stupid tanking). HH confirmed the first survey was wrong, and explained that had we done the work suggested (would have cost north of 13 K IIRC) it would have only made the damp far worse. We took HH's suggestions- some quite simple and cost-free ones like cleaning out the 100 yr old builders' mess of bricks and stuff in the underfloor and removing plastic sheeting there- and it has indeed solved the problem. It cost a tiny fraction of 13K.

Heritage House carry out surveys.

Not in my area from looking at their website 😐 I'm doing some more googling this morning!

You could email them. They did travel but maybe you are too far?. My property was in Brighton but it was expensive. I just googled damp surveys with thermal imaging and found a local surveyor offering the service.

I just got a damp and timber survey for £180.

For a really thorough survey by a specialist surveyor I'd be expecting to pay over 1K, but that would be getting on for a day's work, and would include invasive things like taking samples from walls (i.e., drilling through plaster into brick and testing if the drillings are genuinely damp, not using those crappy 'dampmeters' which are not designed for use on walls, and can't separate damp from old salts).

Heritage House sound very good, but very expensive. Can anyone recommend some other companies to survey period properties, or where to find out more? Preferably not quite as expensive? I'm looking for an overall survey but to include damp issues.