Hi All
We have an old house (about 200 yrs old) with a thick old wall that's suffering from damp. Its an external wall and on the inside there is damp along part of the wall on the ground floor.
We had a valuer/surveyor look at the problem (can't find specialist damp company in the area) and he measured moisture readings and said they were too high indicating damp (which is obvious from the flaking paint, etc).
The problem we have is that the surveyor doesn't know if its rising damp or the wall (or both) that's causing the damp. Externally the wall is old and needs updating. That said, about 3-4 metres of the wall from the ground up (its about 10m tall) had all the pipe work removed, every hole filled and then re rendered less than 2 years ago. There are also no pipes nor guttering on the wall. The surveyor said that old walls are porous and so it could be rainwater getting into the wall higher up, working its way down the wall, and then appearing at the bottom on the ground floor.
We asked whether rising damp was more likely the culprit. The issue is that re-rendering the entire outside wall is costly and before we do this we need to know if it will fix the problem - something it won't do if its rising damp.
The surveyors assumption is purely on the basis that the external wall is old and needs additional TLC.
Do you guys know of any way to determine what the cause of the damp could be?
Thanks a lot for any help and advice you can give!
Ziggy View media item 52624
We have an old house (about 200 yrs old) with a thick old wall that's suffering from damp. Its an external wall and on the inside there is damp along part of the wall on the ground floor.
We had a valuer/surveyor look at the problem (can't find specialist damp company in the area) and he measured moisture readings and said they were too high indicating damp (which is obvious from the flaking paint, etc).
The problem we have is that the surveyor doesn't know if its rising damp or the wall (or both) that's causing the damp. Externally the wall is old and needs updating. That said, about 3-4 metres of the wall from the ground up (its about 10m tall) had all the pipe work removed, every hole filled and then re rendered less than 2 years ago. There are also no pipes nor guttering on the wall. The surveyor said that old walls are porous and so it could be rainwater getting into the wall higher up, working its way down the wall, and then appearing at the bottom on the ground floor.
We asked whether rising damp was more likely the culprit. The issue is that re-rendering the entire outside wall is costly and before we do this we need to know if it will fix the problem - something it won't do if its rising damp.
The surveyors assumption is purely on the basis that the external wall is old and needs additional TLC.
Do you guys know of any way to determine what the cause of the damp could be?
Thanks a lot for any help and advice you can give!
Ziggy View media item 52624
