Rising Damp Puns

Partner and I bought a house. Went through the usual routes of getting survey done.
We went for a Level 3 survey. House needs rewire. Minimal damp on one wall facing outside due to slabs being installed wrongly. Great. We prepared and budgeted for that.

Now we suddenly have someone quoting us thousands due to rising damp all over when we got a spec to get this problem fixed. VERY different from what was in the report. When I spoke to the surveyor on the phone after he made the report he suggested "a few hundred" to fix this rather than the thousands we are now being quoted.

The damp proofing company suggested reaching out to the surveying company to try and get them to cover the cost under liability (as we bought the house under false pretenses, his words)
I am currently getting a second opinion to support any potential claims (including that of the damp proofer as I am aware that everyone acts in their own interest)

Does anyone has experience with trying to claim costs in this case?
Would it be a viable option to pursue or no chance?

Hi everyone, I was hoping you could help me with a bit of a conundrum my partner and I are in!

We're FTB and had an offer accepted on a ground floor garden flat in September. It's pretty much exactly what we were looking for (minus that it's only one bedroom, but this is London so we're a bit limited in that regard!)

We had a level two survey done, and the results came back last week. Along with the usual list of small defects, the flat has damp. I know a lot of places have damp, so we spoke to the surveyor about this, who clarified that it is rising damp, it is in his opinion "severe" and that it's in every wall.

We're not sure what to do now. We're going to another viewing on Saturday (told the estate agent we want to measure for furniture). We had planned to get quotes on how much it would cost to fix the damp. The current Seller has a hollow pot system installed, which we've raised enquiries on with the solicitors.

What would you do in this situation? Should we pull out?

First winter a house I bought in the summer, it has rising damp mainly in the kitchen, I am going to use the DryZone cream but am looking some advise on how it works on a cavity wall.

Do I just drill in through both skins from one side and inject as normal or is there anything else different to the solid walls that they have shown on the website?

Hello everyone.

I’ve just purchased my house with my partner. Exciting but stressful times, when we looked round we fell in love with the property straight away. The basement had been converted to living area which includes, kitchen, utility room, storage room and living room. The living area was full of boxes because the current owners had bought a house and were just waiting for the sale of their property before they could move. We couldn’t smell or see damp when we walked round but we were told that we might need to look at the chimney stack. We made an offer which was their full asking price (housing market was mental so we just snapped it up).

A surveyor from the mortgage broker went round and confirmed that the chimney stack needed repointing and that there was minor damp in the basement living area and that £3000 should be deducted from the asking price. The surveyor which did a “first time buyers” survey agreed with the broker’s surveyor.

Everything else went through without a hitch and along came moving day at the beginning of July. This when the disappointment came, the house smelt damp straight away upon entering the property. We instantly opened up all the windows during the day and put a dehumidifier on during the night.

We then got some damp proof contractors to come round and give us a price for the job. We thought £5000 tops but to our horror he quoted us £25,000 to £30,000 because rising damp was everywhere in the basement, he also mentioned that the basement conversion had not been done properly or hadn’t been damped proofed at all. We thought he was busy and didn’t want the job so we got two more quotes and again to our horror we got the same estimate and diagnostic.

If we knew it was going to cost this much to put right we wouldn’t have moved in. So my question is, is there anyway we can back out or can anyone be held responsible for negligence?

Thank you all in advance.

Painted these walls in March behind the fridge and I've noticed that they are now turning to powder. The wall was mentioned to be slightly damp when I bought the property, just wondering what the best approach is here. The plaster runs to the floor, so I am guessing either the damp proofing below the tiles is bust and needs replacing or the plaster is bridging it and causing these problems. Would it be better to remove the plaster above the tiles first and see if that fixes the problem before I have to take the tiles up, or will I have to take the tiles up anyway and might as well just do it now? Thanks if advance!

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Looking to waterproof our basement floor and walls. (Properly this time). Short of removing the concrete floor and repouring it over a membrane, I thought I’d try a proper 2 part epoxy paint.

Is there a good product available to consumers? Most I’ve found seem to be for trade.

Hi, So my mother in law had building work a year ago, and at the time the builder just fobbed her off about her damp concerns, asserted the areas were fine, and continued with the works.

No surprise, months later the damp returned, and has got progressively worse. We've contacted the master builder fed, got a damp expert to confirm it's clearly been there for years, and there's no way someone competent would not have noticed the rising damp, etc.

To sort the damp now we also need to undo then redo tons of the builders finishings: remove the radiators, strip back the plaster, remove the render, etc etc, then after the damp proofing is in place, make good and redocorate.

So if push comes to shove, is the builder liable for ignoring the existing rising damp despite it being raised repeatedly? If it went to court, would we have a chance in recouping the costs of at least the waste and rework, around £7k?

Thanks Redditors!

I've moved in to a new house a month or so ago, and it's been relatively dry up until this week, but over the course of Sunday these wet patches appeared on the internal walls of the house after loads of heavy rain.

I'm not sure if this is a result of the heavy rain, but there's no evidence that this has happened before (tide marks, mildew etc) as I would have expected if this was recurrent. Its also in the centre of the house, so no external walls, terraced house.

The thing that concerns me is that the water main comes into the house via the hallway cupboard. It's an old black pvc pipe which connects to a stopcock. This coincidentally is where the wet patches have appeared. The black pvc pipe presumably runs under the hallway and out through the front door to the external shut off valve and meter located in a manhole directly outside the front door.

Photo one shows the hallway with the cupboard on the right and the walls with damp patches on the left.

Photo two shows the wall opposite the cupboard (this photo is taken looking back at the front door.) excuse the mess, we're in the middle of renovations!

Photo three shows the cupboard with the stopcock and wet walls. The black pvc pipe comes up through the floor and it's been painted white.

I'm suspicious that the black pvc pipe has started to leak. I have taken meter readings at the external stop valve outside the front door, and as of yesterday it had moved a tiny amount. The pipe and stopcock are dry, and the floor doesn't appear to be wet, and I've taken the laminate up a bit and the concrete floor seems OK underneath, it's just the walls sucking up the water. Bear in mind that this is in the centre of the house, no external walls, and none of the external walls have any signs of damp.

Is there anything I can do to find out what this is, or do I need (as I suspect I do) to call a professional in. And if so who? The local water authority, plumber, damp specialist etc...?

Thanks!

Attached garage has an external wall that goes slightly below ground level (public footpath runs alongside, ground level in garage is approx 60cm below footpath level). Wall looks to be single skin with the section below footpath level slightly inset (see picture below).

Discovered damp across the length of the wall from 'footpath level' down & slightly encroaching on the floor. Not sure if this constitutes as 'rising' or 'penetrating' damp as I assume the damp is coming horizontally through the wall rather than up the wall through ground.

What is best approach here - we've been looking at Dryrod DPC rods but these seem to create more of a barrier to stop damp coming up through ground level rather than blanket coverage to stop it penetrating through the wall. Have looked to coat in tanking slurry but want to make sure the issue is treated rather than just hidden (I'd guess with tanking slurry the brick & mortar behind would remain damp, it just wouldn't penetrate all the way through the skin?)

Further suggestions for home remedies or should we skip straight to professional help?

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Hi all,

We bought our property almost 2 years ago, and have recently had a rising damp issue surface. We had an expert over today to measure the extent of the issue. They've confirmed we have rising damp practically around the entire lower perimeter of the house, largely due to a terrible pointing job that's been done using materials that are too soft/porous.

The expert advised that based on its state, it's likely the damp was present well before we bought the property, and he believes the previous owners just covered it up (hence the repointing and painting), and the slapdash job they did of the pointing made zero improvement to the damp.

We noticed the pointing had been redone when we bought the house, but didn't know with what materials. Our surveyor didn't make any enquiries into why the pointing had been redone recently, and also didn't flag any damp issues, although we believe any signs had just been painted over, and they just did a visual check, not a moisture check, and therefore didn't see the issue.

We've been given a quote to fix the rising damp which we've accepted as we need it fixing regardless, but do we have any grounds to query with our surveyor about why this wasn't flagged in our survey? Why no enquiries were made into why the house was repointed for seemingly no reason, and why they didn't check for damp properly, as it's likely a moisture check would have flagged this back when we bought it?

I don't know if we really have any ground to stand with this situation and it may just be one of those lessons we learn for the future, but any advice or information anyone might have would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

Worse than killing Richie. Worse than abandoning her son. Worse than naming the poor kid Harpo... was Janice chatting with Bobby Jr. online about the Ouija board and frightening the bereaved kids in order get closer to Bobby Sr. That is some sick shit.

Fuckin’ intanet.

Over the past 6 months or so, we've increasingly been noticing rising damp in our lounge, primarily along the wall adjoining the neighbours property. There's a vent between our floor and the underfloor cavity (due to a log burner) and, 6 weeks or so ago, I had a look down it (using my phone) to see if I could find any source of damp. I found water dripping through the adjoining wall under the floorboards, and standing water under much of our front room. Upon investigation on the neighbours side, we found that his ground floor shower was leaking into his underfloor cavity, flowing towards our side, and then coming through the wall. The leak was fixed within 24 hours, but the damage remains.

To date we have been running a dehumidifier almost constantly in the room, but the walls are obviously still damp. I have a moisture sensor: from below about a foot on the walls the moisture levels are at least 10x higher than elsewhere. We have quite a few patches of salt crystals, and some bits of plaster feel very lose/spongey. I popped a couple of the skirting boards off this morning, and behind them feels wet to the touch. Fortunately we've had some nice weather so I feel like the situation has improved, but with winter coming I feel like the drying process will slow. Under the floorboards still looks a bit damp and mouldy, but I'm confident the

Any advice on what I should be doing next? Shall I just keep the heating/log burner and dehumidifier going and wait for it to dry, and then maybe paint a damp sealing paint (e.g., https://www.homebase.co.uk/polycell-damp-seal-500ml_p669420) and refinish? Or should be we looking at stripping back the plaster and replastering? Any tips welcome, thanks :)

EDIT: Thanks all for your input so far. I've contacted some surveyors to take a look, and the neighbour has agreed to pay for that up front. If major work needs doing, we'll talk about insurance.

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Buckle in, boys and girls. This is going to be an epic, selection box of a read. So, let's get started, shall we?

We begin with every episode of '70s classic Rising Damp. This includes the 1975 Christmas special, listed separately as part of Britmas. We'll get to that later. Rising Damp is broken down into 5 series (with the pilot episode on its own). The overall synopsis is as follows:

>Leonard Rossiter, Frances de la Tour, Richard Beckinsale and Don Warrington star in this classic 70s comedy set in a tumbledown boarding house. Follow the ups and downs of landlord Rigsby and his long-suffering tenants Ruth, Alan and Philip.

Next up, we have a large slate of Channel 5 programming. Here is the full list:

• Billionaire Babies (1 series)

>Meet the uber privileged youngsters whose rich parents will stop at nothing to give them what they want. Think private zoos, super yachts and fancy cars. Nothing is too grand for these billionaire babes.

• By Royal Appointment: Shops Serving The Queen

>Documentary shining a light on both the most famous and lesser known shops that carry the royal warrant. From cheese to chocolate, books to bespoke suits, the royals don't do shopping centres.

• Charles & Camilla: King and Queen in Waiting

>Documentary exploring the royal couple’s enduring romance. Discover how their scandalous love affair transformed into a loving partnership that saw Camilla win the nation’s hearts.

• The Clues that Caught the Killer: Fred & Rose West

>Crime documentary examining the clues that caught serial killers Fred and Rose West. In his first ever documentary interview, investigating officer Terry Moore reveals the details of the police work that resulted in Rose West's conviction.

• The Eastenders Murders: True Crime, Real Tragedy

>Crime documentary investigating the murder of two former Eastenders stars, Gemma McCluskie and Sian Blake. Follow the final days of both women before their tragic deaths and hear insights from friends & experts.

• Grenfell Tower: Minute By Minute

>Survivors of the Grenfell Tower tragedy recount their experiences in this poignant documentary. On 14th June 2017, a fire broke out in a West London tower block that would have devastating consequences & spark a national debate on housing.

• Inside Cadbury: The Real Chocolate Factory

>Documentary exploring the turbulent history of Cadbury’s. For almost 200 years, it’s been the home of chocol

Hey everyone, I’m wondering if anyone could recommend any damp specialists. I have damp in my house and there’s so many companies online I don’t know who to go with. Also I’m afraid of being totally ripped off. I’ve been quoted 2.5k, sounds very expensive but maybe that’s the going rate? Thanks in advance!