I had a meeting with another damp proofing and preservation company yesterday. I am not sure I enjoyed everything he told me but at least we met (unlike the last firm, see earlier entries) and we discussed what was required, or rather he told me what was needed. He was an interesting guy to meet because away from damp proofing he was / is Tim Brabant’s coach who won gold and bronze in K1 1000m and 500m canoeing at the Beijing Olympics. It isn’t just the athletes that give up a lot of time for Olympic glory, much of it unpaid.
It appears that the rising damp on the ground floor has risen sufficiently high up the walls that we might as well take off all the plaster on the ground floor and redo it. This is not as bad as it sounds as we knew that there was a lot of re-plastering to be done anyway. It looks like the small extension on the back of the house that has the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom does have a form of dpc and we think that the damp in these walls is just caused by the house being empty for some time. We will only discover this when we start stripping out the kitchen and bathroom.
The current owner gave permission to take up some of the floorboards which was nice of them as whilst the floorboards could (and would) be put back the current hardboard covering was almost certainly going to get damaged in the process. This turned out to be the case.
Whilst it is not possible to comment on the state of all of the downstairs flooring based on two inspection holes the general news was good. The joists and beams that we exposed had some evidence of worm and weevils however it was not too bad and had not affected the integrity of the structure. That does not mean that there might not be other areas that have been infected and we will only know this when we get stuck in. There was certainly some evidence of too much give in some areas of the floor.
We also found limited worm infestation on some of the stair treads so these will have to be repaired / replaced as necessary but again the damage appears to be limited.
So this is what has been proposed.
This last point is disappointing as whilst we knew some repairs were required we had hoped to avoid re-rendering the whole thing. We now have to wait for a quotation for the work.
I confess to being a little nervous at the moment. I know that this is a good opportunity and I am keen to seize it with both hands but the amount of work required is quite daunting.
I took the chance to take plenty of good quality photographs which I will upload later.
It appears that the rising damp on the ground floor has risen sufficiently high up the walls that we might as well take off all the plaster on the ground floor and redo it. This is not as bad as it sounds as we knew that there was a lot of re-plastering to be done anyway. It looks like the small extension on the back of the house that has the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom does have a form of dpc and we think that the damp in these walls is just caused by the house being empty for some time. We will only discover this when we start stripping out the kitchen and bathroom.
The current owner gave permission to take up some of the floorboards which was nice of them as whilst the floorboards could (and would) be put back the current hardboard covering was almost certainly going to get damaged in the process. This turned out to be the case.
Whilst it is not possible to comment on the state of all of the downstairs flooring based on two inspection holes the general news was good. The joists and beams that we exposed had some evidence of worm and weevils however it was not too bad and had not affected the integrity of the structure. That does not mean that there might not be other areas that have been infected and we will only know this when we get stuck in. There was certainly some evidence of too much give in some areas of the floor.
We also found limited worm infestation on some of the stair treads so these will have to be repaired / replaced as necessary but again the damage appears to be limited.
So this is what has been proposed.
- Remove all of the plaster from the downstairs walls
- Inject a chemical dpc to all outside walls
- Treat all the wood in the property including the roof for worm and fungus.
- Improve the under floor ventilation by putting in air bricks.
- Re-render the left outside wall.
This last point is disappointing as whilst we knew some repairs were required we had hoped to avoid re-rendering the whole thing. We now have to wait for a quotation for the work.
I confess to being a little nervous at the moment. I know that this is a good opportunity and I am keen to seize it with both hands but the amount of work required is quite daunting.
I took the chance to take plenty of good quality photographs which I will upload later.
3 comments:
why do you need to re-render the outside wall?
look forward to photos - hope no builder's bums!!
does the house have open fires?
Unfortunatley we will have to re-render the outside wall or water will still get in; not via rising damp but just through the wall.
We could try and avoid doing it but sooner or later damp will appear.
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