Hi-we have just received title deeds for our house as they are now held electronically somewhere. The house was built in 1975, looking through the details I found 2 letters(dated 15yrs ago) from companies who had assessed the house for rising damp problems(damp in the hall & kitchen walls).
The letters stated that there was damp & went on to explain what work needed to be done.
There is nothing else with the letters to say any of the work has been done, I can only presume the work has'nt been done.
The house was sold on them & was rented out by the DSS for a number of years & was in a right state when we bought it.
I am worried to death now, does anyone know anything about damp proof courses eg how much it would be to have it redone?
I'm also annoyed as we were'nt informed about the letters by our solicitor when we bought the house 5yrs ago.

Take care - many damp-proof 'specialists' are cowboys traders who find imaginary problems.

We had a damp proof course done on the whole of our terraced house 2 years ago and it cost £950. Horrible messy job, if you have it done then book a holiday to coincide with the work.

If your house has stone walls then a damp-proof course can cause longterm damage. :(

Don't panic
                 All they do now is drill a series of holes about 1" round every few inches along  the bottom of the damp wall outside and inject a substance that draws out the damp. As for cost , no idea, but don't think it is that expensive to have done.

Bazza

Don't they still have to knock the interior plaster off up to 1 metre high? Thats what they did with ours then drilled the holes round and injected, then re plastered......it was like living on a building site for 2 weeks.

JG where did you get this info but I think it is wrong.   A damp proof can't cause harm. Without it yes. Unless it is of course done completely wrong. My brother has his own preservation Company of 30 years. 

With a big tougue in cheek JG (I was going to say I hope it wasn't the same people that told you about the decking ;-)  ( I am going to get thumped for this :-D)

Murphy whist it can be a messy job as 1 metre of the plaster should be taken off and replaced intrnally it is not a major thing to worry about to be honest and can be put right quite easily.

I have owned houses with the all of the damp problems you can imagine and wood worm etc.

No, solid stone walls are often better without a damp-proof course. There have been a couple in our village (the local building stone is a boulder clay) where people have fallen for the cowboys' spiel they've found that the outside surface of the stone flakes away far quicker than the cottages which were left. Some have suffered serious damage. :( This article shows how cautious one needs to be, and not use modern building practices with old buildings.

Hi JG :-)  The example you have given sounds like a problem with the "stone" rather than the service. Whether a cowboy or not.  You have to remember that ALL houses did originally have a DPC , even 400 years ago,slate  was used , then they moved onto the bitchimin  ( spelling). The orignal DPC will have rotted away.  If you put stone in a oven and then put it on the grass it only take 20 mins to soak up the water.  The problem if you don't treat damp is that it rises and them reaches the timber rotting the whole house.

Sounds like this isn't the OP real trouble though. Or hopefully.:rolleyes:

BFN

That's why I said that if your house as stone walls (as opposed to brick), modern damp-proof treatments can cause longterm damage. ;) The stone needs to absorb moisture from the ground during a dry spell when it can't get it from the air, otherwise it'll dry out completely and crumble.

Stone doesn't have to absorb Moisture from the ground.  What makes you think that? :-) Edinburgh Castle hasn't fallen down. It has had DPC renewed and renewed since the 1100s.  You have to use the DPC type appropriate for the material of the house. The modern DPCs are excellent if you use a good company that know what they are talking about.

My brother was here in the passing for 10mins so I have been asking him, he politely said ( cheeky sod) the problem could be or is the the "mud huts" ie the poor quality stone. Using the word "stone" losely.   He said it was too complicated to go into in 5 mins but he has done approx 1500 buildings/properties some millions of millions of pounds. He is working on a huge private School just now in Edinburgh that has been there is 1200s

The example you gave is  special circumstance and the problem isn't the water or DPC but the poor quality material.  A UK wide company such as Rentokil could advice in 30 mins the best and most appropriate method. So I wouldn't be too worried. 

If it wasn't for the DPC some of the most beautifully properties in Edinburgh which as you know are very very old would have been ruined. I own 2 cottages that I rent out and they made of  one of the most commonly used materials, Granite. both were DPC'd as soon as I got them.  if I didn't I would have lost so much of the original beautiful internal things in one of them as the attic had signs of rot in the wood. I managed to save the huge cornice in one of them by the skin of my teeth.

didn't mean to sabatage your post ;-)  but didn't want the OP to be scared also to get any treatment that would be neccessary. :-) and I don't see my brother very often ( about 3-4 times a year ) and he just happened to pass through :-)

Get the experts in I say just make sure they are. :-)

I used to work with a girl who bought a grade one listed house(not posh it was where famous priest used to live)& she had to get the house treated for damp, however they didn't use a DPC(which is what Rentokil said was needed & in fact was totally wrong for the Yorkshire Limestone it is built from & parts of which date back to the 8th century & the walls are three feet thick in places)A specialist company was used & they put in porous pipes that wicked away the water. It was paid for with a grant because she was renovating the 1200 year old property thankfully.

Moonmaiden :-)  this is perhaps were people go wrong and don't understand that a DPC is only the term use for a damp course treatment the treatment can be many variety of things,  it doesn't have to be a chemical one. What you describe can be what is recommended  and comes under the guidance of preservation and actually is a type of DPC.   I can't defend rentokil but they actually have a very good reputation but anyone can get it wrong. I wouldn't personally ever be put off on one poor decision but then if I had a 1200 old house I would have got the experts in that really know what they are talking about and a few different opinions as much as 5 or 6 by the sounds of it she did also.

My comments were to JG in that to leave a house with NO damp treatment is far worse than to have one(whatever that treatment may be)  :-)

LOL Rentokil might have a good rep with newer houses, but it was the mortgage company that called them in. The buyer was already in contact with the specialist company via the local civic perservation society. Rentokil wanted to use chemicals ! A big no no apparently with Yorkshire Limestone(the houses in Tadcaster I think are mainly made from this local to them stone & they have this pipework damp courses as a norm). The cost of the chemical DPC was not much less than the specialist one either. They didn't call it a DPC & for the life of me I cannot remember what it was called(LOL senior moment)

Did you have a survey done - what did it say ?

Daisy

Does your house smell damp? Is there any sign of damp on the lower parts of your walls? Do you know if any of your neighbours (if their houses are the same) have had problems? If not, then it's probably nothing to worry about and if your house was only built in 1975, it's unlikely to have problems. If you had a Building Society survey, minimal though it is, they would surely have spotted a potential problem. As JG says, the surveys could well have been done by cowboys touting for work.

Hi-thanks for all your replies-reading more into it the builders were sent round to assess the damp on request of the then house owners.
When we moved in we only had the cheap survey very basic although it did mention frost damage to front of house bottom brick work.
The house does'nt smell of damp although I have noticed damp spores on the wall in the corner of the hall.
Hope it does'nt involve replastering etc, neighbours houses are fine apart from terrible plastering jobs, plaster was made mostly from sand & just falls off the walls when redecorating!

If it is the upper corners it 100% can't be risen damp, it could be lateral penetration ie water getting in from leaking gutters, poor harling etc   if it is in the lower it can be risen damp but what you describle actually just sounds like condensation. The marks you mention are called Black spot.