Need to get a small patch of damp sorted in the living room about 1sqm. Just had a large well known firm out who are suggesting we do the whole wall about 3.5m in length and quoting £1200. Is thus normal, what experience does the hive mind have.
Thanks for sharing.
B

“Do” the whole wall in what fashion? Tank, inject, bend you over method?

I’ve used this injectable stuff.

Its a very easy job. Carpenter as a trade.

http://www.twistfix.co.uk/damp-proof-course-3ltr-injection-kit?gclid=CIHKp4GQrrYCFfDJtAodB3QApw

First question I’d ask is why is the wall damp, then I’d look at fixing that (most likely water ingress from somewhere and not rising damp). Then I’d strip back the damaged plaster, set the rest with PVA glue and just repair the patch.

Damp is a difficult thing to deal with because if you deal with it locally, you can just force it to reappear elsewhere. As a result, I would agree that it would be best to do the whole wall. As it needs to be done up to around 1.2m above FFL this will require a fair amount of re-plastering.

Have you investigated what is actually causing the damp? Is the external ground level higher than the DPC? Is the floor DPM present and/or in satisfactory condition? Could there be a leak at high level that is allowing water to get into the cavity?

as footflaps said, there’s likely a reason for the damp suddenly appearing. usually either gutters or ground works.

damp isn’t something you should take advice on over the net, regardless of whether it’s correct or not.

When I bought my house, I made the mistake of paying for the top level survey (whatever that is called) and the surveyor found rising damp and flagged it with the Building Society who got stroppy over it.

What he had failed to notice, was that on the other side of the wall, with rising damp, was a shower, with no mastic between the tray and the bottom of the tiles….

That has shaped my opinion of surveyors and damp experts ever since (morons the lot of them).

Thanks for the replies so far. Undoubtably the problem is outside and I know that I need to deal with it also but since the damp is now in the plaster i need to get this cleaned up and treated. £1200 just sounded like a lot to me..

The house is old around 1850 the slabbed patio at the back is at the same height as the floor level of the room, there are some TV aerial cables going through the wall which will be removed and improvements to the drainage immeadiately outside and around the foundations.

If it were my house I’d be taking up the patio slabs along the wall line and seeing what’s under. With a view to maybe digging a narrow trench and filling it with gravel as a soakaway, to break any capillary movement and reduce rain splash.

But it’s not mine and I haven’t seen the site.

We went through all thus recently, and like you, I asked on here, got a specialist in (who talked a lot of expensive claptrap) and eventually got a local guy in to strip and replaster the entire wall, replace guttering, seal up holes round the upstairs window and dig a French drain along the affected wall.

Two months on and everything is as dry as toast! As Footflaps says, there’ll be a reason the wall’s damp.

As mentioned above very difficult without seeing it, but sounds like you know the source of damp, fix that then allow to dry out. Note that if water has travelled through the wall, it may have transported salts and contaminates (more common in older walls)through the wall to the inside surface (decoration/plaster) which then leaves a stain and also can attract damp from the atmosphere, leaving more stain! So sort out water problem, then monitor and perhaps try to block stain and re-decorate, sometimes works sometimes doesn’t!

I recently had the front room of my 2 bed terraced house done. The 3 quotes ranged from £700-£1500.I went with the £700 quote.

The large well know damp proofing specialist were the most expenesive,the local specialisit with good referrals the cheapest.

That invloved hacking off the existing plaster up to 1.2m, tanking with render, replastering and injection. Wall is 3 m long and it took 2 guys one day.

I`d get some more quotes……………

Tanking is just masking the problem, better to just fix whatever is leaking, let it dry out and re-plaster…..

No signs of any leaks from drains,etc and relative height of outside pavement not easily fixed in my case seeing as the house fronts directly on to the street.

6 months on and no problems.

Tanking should always be secondary to stopping the source of the damp in the first place.

If you don’t want to install a gravel trap to prevent the DPC from being bridged (recommended) you could always expose the external wall below DPC and paint it externally with a bituminous paint both below DPC and up to 150mm above the existing DPC/external ground level.

Again not possible in my case.

As people above have said, Ignore the symptoms at first, and sort out the thing that causing the damp.

Once that’s done you can sort out the damage.

Sorting out the damage can be very minimal (stain blocker and paint) or may need plaster removing and replacing ?

None of this involves “damp experts” protecting your walls (and charging you a fortune) sort out what’s causing the damp, then your walls wont need “protection”