Rising damp in Victorian terrace

HU-205213013

2 years ago

Hello,

We would like to hear people's opinions regarding three quotes we have received to treat damp in our London Victorian terrace house.

Two companies have come and surveyed the damp we have along the front interior wall of our house. They both diagnosed rising damp and recommended replacing the damp proof course (strip back to brick, injections, replaster with waterproof plaster, and paint). The third company recommended going one extra step and exposing the subterranean bricks in the front exterior, applying liquid rubber, and laying a perforated drainage pipe, and overlay with pea shingle.

This extra work more than doubles the price of the job. Can anybody offer their advice or experience with this extra work and whether it justifies the extra outlay?

Many thanks

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (2)

arc3d
2 years ago
If your house is Victorian it's over 100 years old. For most of that 100 years it hasn't had rising damp.

If you find the cause of the damp (leaking gutters, pipes or poor drainage) and rectify it you could probably save yourself 1000s.

As an example a friend of mine and his neighbour both had damp problems in their Victorian terraces. The neighbour decided to pay a small fortune to have his living room wall "damp proofed". My friend however couldn't afford the work to be carried out on his property so I went round and noticed his gutter was leaking at one of the joints. I went and bought a new bracket which cost about £2 something. Climbed up a ladder ( that was the hardest bit) and replaced the bracket. He gave the wall about a week to dry out with the help of a dehumidifier. And that was it. No more damp problems. (The neighbour also had a leaking gutter.)

In conclusion, the Victorians designed houses to be damp free. Later generations removed their damp proofing systems and forgot how to rectify damp problems when they occur. Damp proofing "experts" have built their business model around this.
Jen S
2 years ago
We bought a four storey Victorian villa last December with damp in the basement - our heritage surveyor spotted:
- Old (cheap plastic) guttering that was completely clogged with debris all around
- Some gutters don’t even discharge to a drain…!
- Concrete to light well and side passage floors so surface water doesn’t drain off
- Concrete render on the basement level so the walls can’t breathe (there is also a dodgy Shrijver damp system installed which is useless)
- internal dry wall exacerbating cold/damp external walls
  We’ve struggled with finding builders so some of this will be left to the spring but we are:
- Clearing gutters (cost £100 skyvac)
- Replacing gutters with Alumasc and ensuring all discharge into working drains
- Replacing concrete floors with permeable chips for surface water
- Installing heat recovery units to manage humidity etc inside on that floor
- Re-rendering with a breathable lime render
- Removing drywall so internal heat can permeate and heat external walls as they’re designed to do.
Pretty expensive and very frustrating that these were all unnecessary alterations to the original dry house 🙂

Rising damp in Victorian terrace

Comments (2)

arc3d

Jen S

COMPANY

EXPLORE HOUZZ

CONNECT WITH US