My Dad has a problem with damp in a couple of places in his semi-detached house (probably built in the 1930's or 1950's, I'll check but I know it has solid walls as he couldn't get cavity wall insultation). At the back of the house next to the patio door there's a patch. The external wall has been coated with a sealed in recent years but my Dad thinks the damp probably got in the wall before it was sealed, so he's stripped back the wallpaper and cleaned up the black mould and hopefully that will let the plaster dry out before he redecorates, otherwise he'll have to strip the plaster back and replaster it.
Then at the front of the house in the corner next to the front door there's a problem. He's stripped back the wallpaper there too and cleaned up the wall but he's not sure where the damp is coming from and he needs to work that out and fix the problem before redecorating. There's a water stopcock in that corner, so he's wondering if there might be a small leak in the pipe in the wall and the other side of the wall is the garage and there's a drain just outside the garage, so maybe that's the source of the damp, or he also wonders if it might just be water in the earth from the front garden.
He found a company who claimed to be damp specialists and said they do free surveys but all they did was come out with a slightly better damp meter than my Dad has and stick it against the wall in a few places and say "Yeah, you've got damp there" (in addition to the two places I've mentioned already, they also said there was damp in the internal wall between the living room and kitchen, on the living room side at the end where it joins the external wall with the patio door). He asked them if they could tell what was causing the damp and mentioned the things he'd thought it might be but they just said he'd have to work that out himself and get the problem fixed and then they'd come back and remove and replace the internal plaster, which my Dad can do himself and even if he couldn't I'm sure a plasterer would do it a lot cheaper than this lot.
I told my Dad he can't expect someone to come out for free and identify the problem for him and he'll have to pay the right person to identify the problem and fix it but I don't really know who that would be. Obviously if he can fix it himself he'd prefer that, so if you can give me some tips on how to identify the cause that would be great but otherwise if you can advise who we need to get in to do it that would be helpful.
Then at the front of the house in the corner next to the front door there's a problem. He's stripped back the wallpaper there too and cleaned up the wall but he's not sure where the damp is coming from and he needs to work that out and fix the problem before redecorating. There's a water stopcock in that corner, so he's wondering if there might be a small leak in the pipe in the wall and the other side of the wall is the garage and there's a drain just outside the garage, so maybe that's the source of the damp, or he also wonders if it might just be water in the earth from the front garden.
He found a company who claimed to be damp specialists and said they do free surveys but all they did was come out with a slightly better damp meter than my Dad has and stick it against the wall in a few places and say "Yeah, you've got damp there" (in addition to the two places I've mentioned already, they also said there was damp in the internal wall between the living room and kitchen, on the living room side at the end where it joins the external wall with the patio door). He asked them if they could tell what was causing the damp and mentioned the things he'd thought it might be but they just said he'd have to work that out himself and get the problem fixed and then they'd come back and remove and replace the internal plaster, which my Dad can do himself and even if he couldn't I'm sure a plasterer would do it a lot cheaper than this lot.
I told my Dad he can't expect someone to come out for free and identify the problem for him and he'll have to pay the right person to identify the problem and fix it but I don't really know who that would be. Obviously if he can fix it himself he'd prefer that, so if you can give me some tips on how to identify the cause that would be great but otherwise if you can advise who we need to get in to do it that would be helpful.