Damp showing on survey - what would you do?

[tiredandgrumpy]

We have just exchanged on a lovely new house but know that there is damp in several places. We have had 2 quotes for the work involved - the first was more expensive, from a reputable specialist, but treats the whole ground floor, and would give us a 30 year guarantee. The second was a third of the price, and also less mess, but would only aim to fix the problem in the 5 areas the specialist found. Again, a reputable damp specialist.

Has anyone had experience of treating damp before & what would you recommend? We want to just get this fixed & be able to move on and enjoy the house without the worry that the problem may come back.

you need to work out what is causing it, it is usually things like leaky/dripping gutters, gaps around doors/windows, poor drainage away from the walls?

Is there always a specific cause for damp, or might it simply be working its way up from the ground outside? Sorry for my ignorance, but am totally clueless.

there's a whole industry built around suggesting it mysteriously appears. but it is usually a misdirection of water.

Find out what is causing it before having it treated. Basically, look at the outside wall behind the damp patch. Is the rendering on the house cracked? If that is the case, it is very cheap to fix - just fill the crack and re-finish.

If your problem is rising damp because the damp proof course is shot or missing, then that is something beyond DIY - but get loads of quotes and don't listen to any horror stories if you don't use their proprietary product.

I watched a fascinating programme on a university study that built brick pillars using different bricks and mortars. They then filled in the area with water, they couldn't get the damp to rise upwards......

There's a nice set of videos on taking care of your house, with particular emphasis on damp, here:

www.webvu.co.uk/spab

Those videos are genius, GrendelsMum.
How much do you think it is to get that bloke out to look at your house? Can it be more than the £6k and £7k I have been quoted by two reputable damp companies?! Loads of his points could apply to the place we've just bought...

we had a structural survey done and rising damp was found, we had the sellers make good before we exchanged. when i went to see the property when work was being done they pretty much stripped back much of the plaster up to 3 - 4 feet so defo not a diy job...

best get it sorted before you move in as its pretty messy and took a while for everything to dry out before painting could take place...

get a few quotes if you can...

gl

This is our problem - one guy reckons that to be absolutely sure & get a guarantee, we'd need to strip off the plaster up to a few feet, treat, then replace etc. For a cost of £3-4k. The other guy reckoned all we had to do was drill holes down into the wall in the areas causing problems, treat those, then cover up - much cheaper at about £1k.

Now, do we go for the big messy, expensive but at least fix it all job, or do we go with the patch repair job?

you must find out where the water is getting in and fix that. dpc is a right load of crap spouted by lazy surveyors.

we had a survey done which said we had to do a similar job to yours tag. it turned out (as soon as it rained) that the gutter was sloping the wrong way and throwing all water down the side of the house. £150 on new guttering, voila all sorted.

exactly fishie.

When I lived in house split into an upstairs and downstairs flat the Front door for the upstairs flat was usuless and when is was really wet let water in which gave me damp in my bedroom - argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another property I owned leaking guttering and 18 months worth of rubbish piled in the corner (house was empty).

We were told rising damp in both cases but cured it by sorting out the above problems.

Thank you - we'll have a good look when we move in and perhaps have some better news than expected!

Do look at those videos I linked to - they'll give you pointers for doing what Fishie and CarGirl have suggested.