Hi all,
I've just bought a 1958 built semi-detached house that was pulled on the RICS survey for possible DPC failure/rising damp at skirting board level. We negotiated 5k off the asking price in light of the possible damp issue. The house has solid lower floors and the original bitumen DPC visible on the exterior walls. A £2000 retention was put on our mortgage until a PDA accredited damp surveyor looked into the cause and provided a fix.
I then had a PDA accredited damp survey done and the guy who did the survey was CSSW accredited.
I've just received a 27-page report from him with a fix to hack away a meter of 90% of the interior plaster on the affected walls (including the party wall as we are semi-detached) and inject a chemical DPC with a 20-year warranty for £590+VAT and £1200+VAT for the re-plastering with an additive in the plaster to further resist moisture.
There is no internal sign of damp or mould to any of the wallpapered walls. Although this has been recently done by the previous owner some months back so it may take time to come through.
Here are my issues:
1 - There was once some cavity wall insulation installed by the previous owners and all the lower exterior air bricks have since been silicone sealed up. The damp surveyor said this was common practice for cavity wall insulators but I can't help think that If I drilled out the silicone and left it for 6-12 months, the damp will likely dry out?
2 - The damp surveyor said there were signs of an already installed chemical DPC and that it's obviously not worked and we might want to find out who installed it. This makes me slightly worried because what if his repair doesn't work?
3 - Nearly all the exterior brickwork under the DPC level around the whole house is badly spalled, so much so that the brick faces are flaking and in areas there is alot of white salt residue build-up. The bricks actually crumble if poked with your finger. In places they have crumbled to a maximum depth of 15-20mm. This concerns me a little!
4 - Alot of the other houses on the road seem to suffer the same badly spalled brickwork. Some of them have even had new bricks installed as the colours and quality are different.
5 - We have a kitchen with the same solid floor and the exterior walls are showing the same spalled damage. The damp surveyor said he couldn't assess the interior walls as the kitchen units are the way. I think it's possible the kitchen walls are damp too but he hasn't quoted to repair them? He also put in the report that he couldn't assess the solid floor throughout the house as this would result in destructive drillings?
Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could possibly do next? The fix seems cheap although it doesn't address the exterior brickwork and kitchen, but should I really be worried about the badly spalled exterior bricks anyway? Should I be concerned that the damp surveyor didn't drill the interior walls and take samples but just took moisture level readings on his damp meter?
I was even conidering to hire a HSS damp-meter, take some results now, drill out all the blocked air bricks and then take some more readings in 6-12 months time and see if things have dried out.
Any help is greatly appreciated! I can update the thread with pics of exterior air-bricks blocked up and also the spalled exterior bricks.
I've just bought a 1958 built semi-detached house that was pulled on the RICS survey for possible DPC failure/rising damp at skirting board level. We negotiated 5k off the asking price in light of the possible damp issue. The house has solid lower floors and the original bitumen DPC visible on the exterior walls. A £2000 retention was put on our mortgage until a PDA accredited damp surveyor looked into the cause and provided a fix.
I then had a PDA accredited damp survey done and the guy who did the survey was CSSW accredited.
I've just received a 27-page report from him with a fix to hack away a meter of 90% of the interior plaster on the affected walls (including the party wall as we are semi-detached) and inject a chemical DPC with a 20-year warranty for £590+VAT and £1200+VAT for the re-plastering with an additive in the plaster to further resist moisture.
There is no internal sign of damp or mould to any of the wallpapered walls. Although this has been recently done by the previous owner some months back so it may take time to come through.
Here are my issues:
1 - There was once some cavity wall insulation installed by the previous owners and all the lower exterior air bricks have since been silicone sealed up. The damp surveyor said this was common practice for cavity wall insulators but I can't help think that If I drilled out the silicone and left it for 6-12 months, the damp will likely dry out?
2 - The damp surveyor said there were signs of an already installed chemical DPC and that it's obviously not worked and we might want to find out who installed it. This makes me slightly worried because what if his repair doesn't work?
3 - Nearly all the exterior brickwork under the DPC level around the whole house is badly spalled, so much so that the brick faces are flaking and in areas there is alot of white salt residue build-up. The bricks actually crumble if poked with your finger. In places they have crumbled to a maximum depth of 15-20mm. This concerns me a little!
4 - Alot of the other houses on the road seem to suffer the same badly spalled brickwork. Some of them have even had new bricks installed as the colours and quality are different.
5 - We have a kitchen with the same solid floor and the exterior walls are showing the same spalled damage. The damp surveyor said he couldn't assess the interior walls as the kitchen units are the way. I think it's possible the kitchen walls are damp too but he hasn't quoted to repair them? He also put in the report that he couldn't assess the solid floor throughout the house as this would result in destructive drillings?
Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could possibly do next? The fix seems cheap although it doesn't address the exterior brickwork and kitchen, but should I really be worried about the badly spalled exterior bricks anyway? Should I be concerned that the damp surveyor didn't drill the interior walls and take samples but just took moisture level readings on his damp meter?
I was even conidering to hire a HSS damp-meter, take some results now, drill out all the blocked air bricks and then take some more readings in 6-12 months time and see if things have dried out.
Any help is greatly appreciated! I can update the thread with pics of exterior air-bricks blocked up and also the spalled exterior bricks.
