Rising damp does not exist

As I have said several times- rising damp does not exist.
What appears to be rising damp is caused by other things--especially since the 'replacement of wall ties/ cavity insulation fetish' has given the house surveyors another golden oportunity to make more money for nothing'.

Dont see 'rising damp' in newer houses-- know why ?? because they are new .
Only older houses are targeted by the 'predators'.

Blocked cavities used to be the main cause. Still are in many many cases-- due to soot and old mortar falling down the cavity after 100 years or more .
These days- we have numpty young boy soldiers wandering around- trying to sell cavity wall insulation.
They sell it (because of grants these days).
Next step is numpty installers- who come along- and blast many holes in the wall- HAMMER ON DRILL and blow off back of bricks-because they do not know how to drill properly and prevent back of brick spalling off . Gravity takes its course and cavities get full.
Also- backs of bricks rest on old ties .
Soot/old mortar falls down from holes in brickwork chimney construction-
lodges on fallen material-- and outside brickwork gets wet (only when it rains) and water tracks between outside skin and inside skin-- hence - high/mid level damp.

A few weeks ago- I took maybe 9 sacks of crap and soot out of a gable wall cavity.
2 years ago- I emptied that cavity- around 9 or 10 bags then.
Soot in bottom of cavity- above dpc/floor level was wet through.
Could squeeze the water out with my hands.

Penetrating damp was caused to inside.

All to do with partical size of muck in the hole . Simples .

I've read the 'Myth' book (a good read even if you disgree with him) and a few of the usual textbooks. I'm open to the idea that RD can happen if the ground is very saturated and the mortar weakened old lime based stuff with equally soft bricks. Probably a very rare scenario.

Has there been an experiment which has actually found RD? (other than the BRE which allegedly encouraged it with chalky mortar etc just to test chemical injection)

Blagard said:

I saw many examples of what I believe were rising damp.

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Do you have any photos of just one property?

A technical report?

A postal address?

Softus said:

Blagard said:

I saw many examples of what I believe were rising damp.

Click to expand...

Do you have any photos of just one property?

A technical report?

A postal address?

Click to expand...

I was working for local authority in respect of grants for private home owners. So there are no details I could publish.

In general I didn't take photos. - I certainly didn't retain any when I left the authority.

All properties in an improvement area were subject of reports by damp proofing companies which varied from OK to complete rubbish (just my opinion) Properties outside improvement areas would only be subject to a report where it was deemed appropriate.

I know loads of address's, you can't have any!

I was working mainly on old properties (Builds around 1900/1918), so I would guess over the five years I must have inspected around 500 that went through the whole process including interim inspection as the work proceeded.

So what do you base your opinions on!

Right back at the beginning of the topic said:

Does anyone out there have any real-life examples of rising damp caused ONLY by a failed DPC in the wall? If so, please can you help me understand how it happens/happened?

I don't want to mislead anyone, so I'll state my basic postulate:

Rising damp does not exist unless there's a moisture path between one or more of the following:

- floor and inside wall
- plaster and inside wall
- render and outside wall

Any takers?

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Sometime later said:

I saw many examples of what I believe were rising damp.

Click to expand...

So I said:

Do you have any photos of just one property?

A technical report?

A postal address?

Click to expand...

But you don't. Nor do you have any explanation for the rising damp you claimed that you saw.

Your point is taken,

I think it is fair to say the vast majority of properties I saw did not have a properly installed DPC as such. So it would be wrong to say they had a DPC failure. Where a properly made DPC has been installed the only time I have seen rising damp is due to bad building practice bridging the DPC, not the failure of the DPC itself.

My comments were aimed at those who believe that rising damp is a myth.

I don't offer any explanation as I have never conducted tests.

I can more or less guarantee, before I even start, that any 'rising dampness' I might investigate will turn out to be something else. It's just a question of working out what? Having said that I have had one instance of dampness in a wall that there wasn't an obvious other cause. It was a brick wall in a Victorian terrace - the wall between the hallway and living room. The area was Bedminster, Bristol which is low lying and prone to high water table. The void beneath the ground floor was about 200mm and the ground was very damp. Ventilation was good and there were no problems other than the wall below floor level being damp and the classic wave pattern of dampness in the wall for about 300mm or 400mm above the floor level. Which I initially put down to condensation caused by the wall being quite cold at floor level. There did not appear to be any damp proof course and the wall was unusual in that the bricks were quite soft (the old bricks around here are normally like nails) Our solution in the end was to insert a plastic dpc. The brick joints were soft lime mortar and the wall was only about 2.5m long so it was quite easy to run a masonry saw along a bed joint in 600 - 700mm sections and insert the dpc. It cured it dead. No dampness afterwards. I've been surveying Victorian houses for about 15 years professionally and a lot of the previous 15 years was spent bashing them about. So I know them quite well. If this was rising dampness it was one in about hundreds and hundreds???. But in this case it did appear to be dampness rising up the wall from below - which can only be described as rising damp.

Before we moved into a Victorian terrace in Reading the survey came back with rising damp in the entrance hall. Suggested DPC be injected, and replasetering done. Shared cost with seller and thought job was done.

However they hadn't replaced the skirting, and the plastering was fresh, so we left it a few months before considering repainting. Being a curious person I noted that you could pull up the floorboards around where the hall radiator was. And noted that the plumber who had fitted the radiator had bent the pipe 90 degrees within a gouge in the joist (which itself went into the wall above an existing DPC). First annoyance - there already was a DPC! Seemed a bit odd. Pulled up floorboard again later that night to show my Dad the DPC and express annoyance about the existing DPC, only to find the joist was wet, and the plaster (resting on the joist) was also starting to get wet. It dawned on us that the 90 degree turn was obviously weeping when the heating was on, and getting the plaster wet. So yes there was rising damp, but only though the plaster, and only from the constant drip from the heating. What a Total waste of money. Problem fixed by plumber replacing the 90 degree turn.

2.30 in the morning I had got to page 10...finished reading this very entertaining post this morning.

Is Softus still around? If so Softus, I would be interested to read your thoughts on the link that Flight 1 included...the Ralph Burkinshaw experiment.
( I will add here one point that struck me about this experiment...why did he not construct the brick work on earth? Maybe I missed something in his report.)
Softus...thoughts please.

http://www.askjeff.co.uk/rising-damp/
http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/...a-myth-says-former-rics-chief/5204095.article
http://www.heritage-house.org/the-fraud-of-rising-damp.html
http://www.rics.org/uk/shop/The-Rising-Damp-Myth-17888.aspx
http://yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Rising-Damp-in-Old-Houses-Its-just-a-myth
http://buildingdoctor.com/rising_damp/rising_damp_myth.php

The 'rising-damp-is-a-myth' movement is itself becoming a myth, and a rather boring one at that.

Everyone jumps on this bandwagon. Rising damp is certainly not as common as the cowboys would have us believe, but that does not mean it does not exist.

Someone made a lot of money from a book, which seemed to start the ball rolling; and how can anyone take Stephen Fry's view on this at all seriously?

peterperfection said:

As I have said several times- rising damp does not exist.
What appears to be rising damp is caused by other things--especially since the 'replacement of wall ties/ cavity insulation fetish' has given the house surveyors another golden oportunity to make more money for nothing'.

Dont see 'rising damp' in newer houses-- know why ?? because they are new .
Only older houses are targeted by the 'predators'.

Blocked cavities used to be the main cause. Still are in many many cases-- due to soot and old mortar falling down the cavity after 100 years or more .
These days- we have numpty young boy soldiers wandering around- trying to sell cavity wall insulation.
They sell it (because of grants these days).
Next step is numpty installers- who come along- and blast many holes in the wall- HAMMER ON DRILL and blow off back of bricks-because they do not know how to drill properly and prevent back of brick spalling off . Gravity takes its course and cavities get full.
Also- backs of bricks rest on old ties .
Soot/old mortar falls down from holes in brickwork chimney construction-
lodges on fallen material-- and outside brickwork gets wet (only when it rains) and water tracks between outside skin and inside skin-- hence - high/mid level damp.



A few weeks ago- I took maybe 9 sacks of crap and soot out of a gable wall cavity.
2 years ago- I emptied that cavity- around 9 or 10 bags then.
Soot in bottom of cavity- above dpc/floor level was wet through.
Could squeeze the water out with my hands.

All to do with partical size of muck in the hole . Simples .

Click to expand...

Wow, is this thread still going!

Peter, I felt the need to step in and say that your views are quite simply wrong.

Rising damp does exist but it's very rare.
Don't cite poor surveying practice by the damp proofing industry as evidence to discredit a scientifically proven phenomena. What you say with regard to blocked cavities is generally correct but it does nothing to disprove the concept of rising damp.

I teach university undergraduates the principles of damp investigation and remediation and perhaps you might find both of my articles useful here...

http://surveyingproperty.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/rising-damp-update-for-2013-part-one.html

http://surveyingproperty.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/rising-damp-update-for-2013-part-two.html

Incidentally, these articles were republished as a National Energy Service SAVA technical bulletin recently and I was extremely unhappy that they changed the title of my work without my permission; the reason being that they rehashed the boring old 'rising damp myth?' title. Jeff Howell's work has been widely discredited in academic circles and that includes by me. It is only those with a poor understanding who cling onto the idea. The technical bulletin can be found here... http://www.maloneassociatesltd.co.uk/published-technical-papers.html

Well you will never get a reply from peterperfection as he passed away last year, FYI. At least not in this life!

Flight1 said:

However, there is one error in all this thinking, irrespective of the presence or not of a vertical wall covering, the mortar alone represents one continuous and uninterrupted material from ground to ceiling, the horizontal inter-brick mortar is in contact with the vertical mortar and as it is the same material it has the same capillary size. Imagine your house, you can place your finger on the pointing at floor level and run all the way to your roof without ever once having to cross another material, take your finger off the mortar or anything of the kind. What is it that prevents the mortar alone wicking water up from the base of the wall and saturating the bricks?

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Amphibian makes a very valid point here i think, and one that i've been wondering about myself. Can anyone answer it?

I consider myself an 'RD doubter' as well, so i'd be quite happy for someone to successfully explain it.



As well as that, there is this:

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jba/journal/v6/n1/full/jba201013a.html

If you read it, it seems Mr Ralph Burkinshaw has successfully (and surprisingly easily ) demonstrated damp rising through brickwork.

How has he done this when Jeff Howell couldn't, and that guy on the BBC documentary (he wasn't Howell was he?) claimed he used lots of different mortar mixes - did it never occur to him to try a lime mix?

I'm a bit puzzled as to how the debate can rage for so long only to (seemingly) be easily solved by an experiment i could've, with a bit of effort, carried out myself!

Surely there must be something a bit funny going on?

Softus? Konrad?

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to respond, or is it time to silently retreat?

Click to expand...

If you click the link...It's interesting. It SEEMS to prove that rising damp is real through a brick and mortar construction. It also SEEMS to prove that injection works to stop RD. I make no comment...as my head is spinning. I do note however that the guy is in 'the industry'....My Victorian house, circa 1890, has no foundations...just splayed out bricks at the base direct to the earth. This brickwork 'foot' contains 2, joint offset, layers of a material that resembles terracotta tiles, about 12mm thick. It certainly is not a slate dpc and it does not SEEM to restrict water movement...so I wonder what it's purpose was/is?. It's an interesting discussion this...tho I am driving my neighbour mad with these alternative thoughts as he is 'a believer'. I wonder where the OP has gone...not being sarcastic here, I enjoyed his analytical thinking and cross examination. He'd be a fine defense barrister I dare say.

The OP is still around, though doesn't post much. He gave a good crack, though like many who think they are he was not infallible!