rising damp in party wall

[richardculver]

hi everyone

I'm currently in the process of trying to buy a brick terraced house, built around 1910. I just got the homebuyers survey back, which found evidence of some rising damp in the party wall of one of the down stairs rooms. I'm really confused as to what to do - I've read on the internet that the moisture meters surveyors use are only reliable for timber and may exaggerate the amount of damp on other materials (the wall in wuestion is wall papered). I have to admit that when I've looked round the house I havnt seen any evidence of damp in this area; no stains, no damp smell, skirting boards seem ok etc. Has anyone got any advice as to what I should do next? also, is it more expensive to remediate the problem in a party walll?

thanks

richard

 

[jeds]

It depends what type of moisture meter your surveyor used and how he measured this damp? The common ones are as follows - There are basically two types:

A Protimeter 'mini' or a Protimeter 'timbermaster' both have steel pins which are poked into the material being measured. Both these types are designed for measuring moisture content in wood and are pretty well useless for masonry. If he used the pins on the masonry the results mean nothing and your visual inspection will probably be more accurate. If he poked the pins into the wood skirting found damp this is a fairly accurate guide - although surveyors tend to try and avoid pins in skirtings etc. as it damages the paint surface and vendors don't tend to like it.

The other type he might have used is a Protimeter 'Surveymaster SM'. This too has pins but it also has a Radio Frequency mode of measure which does give more accurate information in masonry - but even then the results have to be interpreted.

Ask him which he used?

Are the decorations along the wall fairly old? If the decs are old and in reasonable condition, I would take that as a good guide. Damp walls will disrupt decorations fairly quickly.

Look at the wall behind a sideboard or anything else close to the wall. You are more likely to see signs of damp there because of lack of air movement.