We have now accepted and come to love our damp so I need as many
solutions for minimising the problem as you wonderful people can come
up with.

We have a Victorian terrace with a modern(ish) concrete floor
downstairs in the hall and back room, the front room has a suspended
timber floor. we have what looks like rising damp intermitently around
the whole ground floor. after posting on various websites like this
one, having perplexed 'professionals' round to look at it and doing my
own research I have concluded (!) that the concrete floor is pushing
moisture to the edges of the room and up the walls. we may also have a
failing damp course but I dont want to get into this as we cant afford
to re-inject/replaster etc (I'm not convinced it is failing either).

so, we are going to decorate the whole ground floor and need to know
the best ways of going about minimising the problem. so far I have come
up with following potential ideas:

-take off skirting boards, attach wooden batten under the level of the
plaster but above the concrete floor to absord moisture, put skirting
back on.

-ventilate skirting baords at various points

-damp proof concrete floor with sealant(?) before carpeting ??

-use damp proof paint as an undercoat (does this stuff work in these
circumstances or at all?)

we are intending to paint the front room (timber floor) but the back
room and hall need papered as the walls are in bad shape. should we be
taking a different approach for the intended papered and painted rooms?


any comments on the above welcome as well as any other ideas...

wrote:
We have now accepted and come to love our damp so I need as many
solutions for minimising the problem as you wonderful people can come
up with.

We have a Victorian terrace with a modern(ish) concrete floor
downstairs in the hall and back room, the front room has a suspended
timber floor. we have what looks like rising damp intermitently around
the whole ground floor. after posting on various websites like this

This is a newsgroup, not a website, but carry on..

one, having perplexed 'professionals' round to look at it and doing
my own research I have concluded (!) that the concrete floor is
pushing moisture to the edges of the room and up the walls. we may

You've concluded wrong Kev, and more to the point, you are wasting any money
and time you throw at this unless it's spent on installing a DPC.

also have a failing damp course but I dont want to get into this as
we cant afford to re-inject/replaster etc (I'm not convinced it is
failing either).

It is, or I should say, it already has...what you think a DPC involves when
you say you 'can't afford it' is beyond me, would you say the same if your
roof blew off?

so, we are going to decorate the whole ground floor and need to know
the best ways of going about minimising the problem. so far I have
come up with following potential ideas:

-take off skirting boards, attach wooden batten under the level of the
plaster but above the concrete floor to absord moisture, put skirting
back on.


Complete waste of time, effort and money - if you are taking any skirting
boards off, you should drill two holes in each brick and inject them with DP
liquid or gel - ******** to the firms who install and 'gaurantee' it - do it
yourself, both to save money and for your own comfort.

-ventilate skirting baords at various points

-damp proof concrete floor with sealant(?) before carpeting ??

-use damp proof paint as an undercoat (does this stuff work in these
circumstances or at all?)

No, DP paint is crap, it's cosmetic, like everything that you have mentioned
so far, none of it will stop the water rising through the brickwork until
you install a DPC

we are intending to paint the front room (timber floor) but the back
room and hall need papered as the walls are in bad shape. should we be
taking a different approach for the intended papered and painted
rooms?


any comments on the above welcome as well as any other ideas...

If you want to keep spending money on decorations every year, put up with
damp walls and risk timbers rotting (and inviting dry rot to destroy the
rest of the timber in your house) carry on...but you are throwing good money
after bad...how many 'professionals' have you paid to come and look at it so
far?
how much time and money have you spent on it so far?
How much do you think it costs to hire a sds drill and purchase a few drums
of DP liquid and a pump? - all that hacking off 1 metre of plaster is tripe
(I know because we used to install DPC on every house we renovated from 1981
to 1995) - it's only to satisfy the chemicasl company and to provide the
installers with extra money, for your own house, just remove skirtings,
drill, pump and replace skirtings, 3 months later no damp - redecorate and
forget.

clearly I like the sound of this, what sort of price are we talking?

I must admit though all of the above ideas are the accumualted
knowledge I have got mainly from posting on here - the common theme
being "damp proof course isn't failing, concrete floor the cause, sort
the problem and don't waste money on more injecting etc..."

I think I'd be convinced by your argument if there werent the random
patches of damp - can the DPC fail in intermittenly in various
different areas.

also the main area of damp is in an internal partition wall, would this
have even had a DPC?

wrote:
clearly I like the sound of this, what sort of price are we talking?

I must admit though all of the above ideas are the accumualted
knowledge I have got mainly from posting on here - the common theme
being "damp proof course isn't failing, concrete floor the cause, sort
the problem and don't waste money on more injecting etc..."

I think I'd be convinced by your argument if there werent the random
patches of damp - can the DPC fail in intermittenly in various
different areas.

Yes, I had damp in a wall that was about a foot long and a foot high,
nothing on each side of it and the wall was 12ft long!

the victorian method of DPC was often slate, this was sometimes laid on a
thin bitumen coating, sometimes the slate wasn't used at all and just
bitumen was applied at DPC level, sometimes nothing at all....I have seen
houses with no semblance of a DPC whatsoever and they have been totally dry,
others have had slate, bitumen or a combination of both and been ringing
wet - it all depends on the ground underneath the house...areas where there
is a lot of sand in the soil will rarely suffer from rising damp because it
doesn't hold in the ground too long, other areas where the ground holds a
lot of moisture all year round will sufer damp problems, so there is no
wrong or right way concerning DPC's.
If there was no DPC there at all, it still doesn't mean that the wall would
be evenly damp, some parts of the foundations may have better drainage than
others and some bricks are softer and more porous than others...also if
there is a dpc and it's failed, it may hve only failed in places, not all
over, bitumen cracks up in winter and runs in summer when it gets very hot.

also the main area of damp is in an internal partition wall, would
this have even had a DPC?

All downstairs walls, interior and exterior have (or should have) a DPC in
them.

The cost of hiring a dampcourse pump is about £30 for a day, a SDS drill and
a 10mm bit will cost about the same, unless you know someone who would lend
you one, the liquid is about £25ish (25L) and a mid terraced will take about
2.5 drums...there is a gel which someone mentioned in her a while ago which
doesn't require a pump...

If you decide to do it, take off all the skirting boards downstairs, drill
the whole thing out, keeping the same course all the way through and then go
and hire the pump, unless you can get someone to drill for you, in which
case you can start pumping immediately.
The corresponding course of bricks outside will need doing also, front and
back, plus an upstand of about 30 inches where it meets next doors or a
garden wall etc.

One man can do one house easily within a day, two men can probably do three!

Thanks. The house had a DPC in 1992, the installer has since gone out
of business. the main walls affected are internal or on the party wall
with the neighbour. doing the outisde may also be tricky because the
wall contrcution is stone dressed brick.

presumably the new dpc would need to go abpve the concret e floor but
below the suspended timber floor? also, is it best to avoid the bricks
that have already been injected?

wrote:
Thanks. The house had a DPC in 1992, the installer has since gone out
of business. the main walls affected are internal or on the party wall
with the neighbour. doing the outisde may also be tricky because the
wall contrcution is stone dressed brick.

Cladding? - this should not have bridged the DPC when it was applied, if it
has you may need to double drill from inside.

presumably the new dpc would need to go abpve the concret e floor but
below the suspended timber floor? also, is it best to avoid the bricks
that have already been injected?

Is the concrete floor the same level as the wooden floor? - if it is then
keep the same course all the way around, if you can get underneath the
wooden floor easily enough and there is suitable access, then do underneath
the wooden floor, but where the concrete floor starts, you will need to step
it up so that it joins onto the course you will be drilling above the
concrete, like this:

Wood V :...............
...............:concrete ^

wrote:
Thanks. The house had a DPC in 1992, the installer has since gone out
of business. the main walls affected are internal or on the party wall
with the neighbour. doing the outisde may also be tricky because the
wall contrcution is stone dressed brick.

presumably the new dpc would need to go abpve the concret e floor but
below the suspended timber floor? also, is it best to avoid the bricks
that have already been injected?

I did a house similar to what yours sounds like. the dining room floor was old
'concrete' with quarry tiles over it. the 'concrete' had failed and the quarry tiles
were semi mobile. it was possible to lift a few of them off by hand and the house
was listed as being damp. it had a new concrete slab poured over a DPM and
sealed with bitumen. all walls were silicone injected and the bottom yard of plaster
was hacked off, as was/is the fashion. that cured the damp but, with the CH installed,
warped most of the nice old victorian doors.

ya live and learn.

On 17 Oct 2006 12:03:41 -0700, "
wrote:

We have now accepted and come to love our damp so I need as many
solutions for minimising the problem as you wonderful people can come
up with.

We have a Victorian terrace with a modern(ish) concrete floor
downstairs in the hall and back room, the front room has a suspended
timber floor.

Having had exactly that configuration in such a house, I think you
will find that the room with the concrete floor was intended as a
scullery, and that room and hall, had bricks laid directly on the bare
earth. The suspended floor is where the servants were supposed to
exist, hence the luxury of a dry floor.

Unless one has lived in such a house, the damp from the floor is
unimaginable.

Phil L wrote:
wrote:
We have now accepted and come to love our damp so I need as many
solutions for minimising the problem as you wonderful people can come
up with.

We have a Victorian terrace with a modern(ish) concrete floor
downstairs in the hall and back room, the front room has a suspended
timber floor. we have what looks like rising damp intermitently around
the whole ground floor. after posting on various websites like this

This is a newsgroup, not a website, but carry on..

one, having perplexed 'professionals' round to look at it and doing
my own research I have concluded (!) that the concrete floor is
pushing moisture to the edges of the room and up the walls. we may

You've concluded wrong Kev, and more to the point, you are wasting any money
and time you throw at this unless it's spent on installing a DPC.

also have a failing damp course but I dont want to get into this as
we cant afford to re-inject/replaster etc (I'm not convinced it is
failing either).

It is, or I should say, it already has...what you think a DPC involves when
you say you 'can't afford it' is beyond me, would you say the same if your
roof blew off?

so, we are going to decorate the whole ground floor and need to know
the best ways of going about minimising the problem. so far I have
come up with following potential ideas:

-take off skirting boards, attach wooden batten under the level of the
plaster but above the concrete floor to absord moisture, put skirting
back on.


Complete waste of time, effort and money - if you are taking any skirting
boards off, you should drill two holes in each brick and inject them with DP
liquid or gel - ******** to the firms who install and 'gaurantee' it - do it
yourself, both to save money and for your own comfort.

-ventilate skirting baords at various points

-damp proof concrete floor with sealant(?) before carpeting ??

-use damp proof paint as an undercoat (does this stuff work in these
circumstances or at all?)

No, DP paint is crap, it's cosmetic, like everything that you have mentioned
so far, none of it will stop the water rising through the brickwork until
you install a DPC
we are intending to paint the front room (timber floor) but the back
room and hall need papered as the walls are in bad shape. should we be
taking a different approach for the intended papered and painted
rooms?


any comments on the above welcome as well as any other ideas...

If you want to keep spending money on decorations every year, put up with
damp walls and risk timbers rotting (and inviting dry rot to destroy the
rest of the timber in your house) carry on...but you are throwing good money
after bad...how many 'professionals' have you paid to come and look at it so
far?
how much time and money have you spent on it so far?
How much do you think it costs to hire a sds drill and purchase a few drums
of DP liquid and a pump? - all that hacking off 1 metre of plaster is tripe
(I know because we used to install DPC on every house we renovated from 1981
to 1995) - it's only to satisfy the chemicasl company and to provide the
installers with extra money, for your own house, just remove skirtings,
drill, pump and replace skirtings, 3 months later no damp - redecorate and
forget.


I have to agree.

I lived with this sort of damp for year..and the only thing that works
is putting the heating on and opening the window.

That or stopping it getting in.

Under a house should not BE that damp...it doesn't get rained on...often
the bigger problem is that water isn't being cleared from around the
house, or worse, with suspended floors, is actually running underneath.

A french drain often helps a lot, and with suspended floors a sump with
a pump and a float valve.

Injection DIES work as long as the brickwork isn't so inaccessible or so
wide that you can't do it properly.

wrote:
clearly I like the sound of this, what sort of price are we talking?

I must admit though all of the above ideas are the accumualted
knowledge I have got mainly from posting on here - the common theme
being "damp proof course isn't failing, concrete floor the cause, sort
the problem and don't waste money on more injecting etc..."

You have been listening to people who have read something on period
homes, haven't understood it, and think they know everything.


I think I'd be convinced by your argument if there werent the random
patches of damp - can the DPC fail in intermittenly in various
different areas.

Yes. if injected.



also the main area of damp is in an internal partition wall, would this
have even had a DPC?

Thats the issue. On my house I had the same, and the primary reason was
they injected from outside, and made a DPC that way - the original had
none - but they simply didn't DO the internal walls

In my case the problem was worst where the floors were wood. The main
reason for that was water was collecting under the suspended floors.
Where they had laid concrete on a DPC it didn't even get under the house
at all.

An internal wall is a good candidate for injection, but you have to go
low and deep. Or skirtings will rot.

.. wrote:
wrote:
Thanks. The house had a DPC in 1992, the installer has since gone out
of business. the main walls affected are internal or on the party wall
with the neighbour. doing the outisde may also be tricky because the
wall contrcution is stone dressed brick.

presumably the new dpc would need to go abpve the concret e floor but
below the suspended timber floor? also, is it best to avoid the bricks
that have already been injected?

I did a house similar to what yours sounds like. the dining room floor was old
'concrete' with quarry tiles over it. the 'concrete' had failed and the quarry tiles
were semi mobile. it was possible to lift a few of them off by hand and the house
was listed as being damp. it had a new concrete slab poured over a DPM and
sealed with bitumen. all walls were silicone injected and the bottom yard of plaster
was hacked off, as was/is the fashion. that cured the damp but, with the CH installed,
warped most of the nice old victorian doors.


"sometimes you just can't win"


ya live and learn.

wrote in message
oups.com...
We have now accepted and come to love our damp so I need as many
solutions for minimising the problem as you wonderful people can come
up with.

We have a Victorian terrace with a modern(ish) concrete floor
downstairs in the hall and back room, the front room has a suspended
timber floor. we have what looks like rising damp intermitently around
the whole ground floor. after posting on various websites like this
one, having perplexed 'professionals' round to look at it and doing my
own research I have concluded (!) that the concrete floor is pushing
moisture to the edges of the room and up the walls.


Eeek I know of several houses in Eastbourne that had this done 20+ years ago
a complete disaster
You have 3 options
Renew the DPC again as Phil's advice, on party walls I would use
http://www.safeguardeurope.com/products/dryzone.php
to avoid the possibility of filling the neighbours house with chemicals /
smells
its also much more DIYable.

fit tanking
http://www.newton-membranes.co.uk/newlath.htm
from floor to _above_ ceiling level and arrange ventilation from skirting
level to exterior via ceiling void to outside wall.

Dig up the concrete and do the complete job properly.




-

Mark wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
We have now accepted and come to love our damp so I need as many
solutions for minimising the problem as you wonderful people can come
up with.

We have a Victorian terrace with a modern(ish) concrete floor
downstairs in the hall and back room, the front room has a suspended
timber floor. we have what looks like rising damp intermitently around
the whole ground floor. after posting on various websites like this
one, having perplexed 'professionals' round to look at it and doing my
own research I have concluded (!) that the concrete floor is pushing
moisture to the edges of the room and up the walls.


Eeek I know of several houses in Eastbourne that had this done 20+ years ago
a complete disaster
You have 3 options
Renew the DPC again as Phil's advice, on party walls I would use
http://www.safeguardeurope.com/products/dryzone.php
to avoid the possibility of filling the neighbours house with chemicals /
smells
its also much more DIYable.

fit tanking
http://www.newton-membranes.co.uk/newlath.htm
from floor to _above_ ceiling level and arrange ventilation from skirting
level to exterior via ceiling void to outside wall.

Dig up the concrete and do the complete job properly.




-


Not much help I know, but every house I've been in where a suspended
floor has been replaced by concrete has suffered damp. I don't see how
it could be "pushing" the moisture to the edges, but it does leave damp
only one route if it's coming from below. I've known French ditches make
a big difference but they have to be fairly deep
I think dpc injection is probably your best move. Relatively cheap and
easy if you d-i-y, and then at least you can eliminate that source.

Update for what it's worth. Taken off some skirting at the point where
the damp is most evident ie at the junction on the internal partition
wall bentween the suspended timber floor front room and the concrete
floor hall / back room. there is a blue plastic membrane sticking out
3-4 inches from under the concrete floor which may give its age away
(?). there has defineitly been a DPC as I can see the holes. the bricks
are dry but the plaster above is sodden.

took a look under the floor boards in the front room. cant see back
twoards the area mentioned above as there is an original stone
supporting wall under the floor boards blocking my view. whatever is
going on, the worst of it would seem to be coming from this area.

also looked round outside of house and existing DPC in external walls
appears to be about an inch above the house floor level

also... the chemical compnay in 1992 when the DPC was installed was
Palace Chemcials who are still in business (and not liable of
course!!).

here is a photo of the main offending wall with skirting removed.
timber floor front room to left of shot, concrete floor to foreground
and right of shot

http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/albu...oto=1015842051

wrote:

We have now accepted and come to love our damp so I need as many
solutions for minimising the problem as you wonderful people can come
up with.

We have a Victorian terrace with a modern(ish) concrete floor
downstairs in the hall and back room, the front room has a suspended
timber floor. we have what looks like rising damp intermitently around
the whole ground floor. after posting on various websites like this
one, having perplexed 'professionals' round to look at it and doing my
own research I have concluded (!) that the concrete floor is pushing
moisture to the edges of the room and up the walls. we may also have a
failing damp course but I dont want to get into this as we cant afford
to re-inject/replaster etc (I'm not convinced it is failing either).

so, we are going to decorate the whole ground floor and need to know
the best ways of going about minimising the problem. so far I have come
up with following potential ideas:

-take off skirting boards, attach wooden batten under the level of the
plaster but above the concrete floor to absord moisture, put skirting
back on.

-ventilate skirting baords at various points

-damp proof concrete floor with sealant(?) before carpeting ??

-use damp proof paint as an undercoat (does this stuff work in these
circumstances or at all?)

we are intending to paint the front room (timber floor) but the back
room and hall need papered as the walls are in bad shape. should we be
taking a different approach for the intended papered and painted rooms?


any comments on the above welcome as well as any other ideas...


1. Wrong approach.
2. Wrong newsgroup. UK-d.i.y has a great range of expertise, but it
falls short when it comes to damp in period properties. Try he
http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/discussion_forum.htm

NT

wrote:
also... the chemical compnay in 1992 when the DPC was installed was
Palace Chemcials who are still in business (and not liable of
course!!).

here is a photo of the main offending wall with skirting removed.
timber floor front room to left of shot, concrete floor to foreground
and right of shot

http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/albu...oto=1015842051


Picture won't load.....

Picture won't load.....

Try this

http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/4234979

wrote:
Picture won't load.....

Try this

http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/4234979


That's better.
So this is an internal wall and you say the bricks are dry, but the
plaster above them is wet? It could be that the bricks dry out and the
plaster, being more absorbent, is retaining water. See if the bricks are
wet after heavy rainfall.
One is tempted to say you have rising damp, possibly because of a high
water table, and that it's soaking up into the walls. Presumably the
concrete floor was put in to address the problem and it's driven it to
the sides i.e. your original diagnosis :-).
Then again, concrete is colder than wood and, depending on the aspect of
the house, heating conditions etc, may be causing condensation. In that
case the floor itself would be damp under the carpet, and it would be
unlikely to affect the room with the suspended floor.
Give periodproperty.com a go and let us know what they say. However, as
with all these damp problems, you can't beat observation and commonsense.

Observation and common sense led me to my original conclusions which
have been roundly deconstructed above. periodproperty has been tried
and they were of no use unfortunately other than to suggest taking the
concrete floor up which I would like to do but it's a job a bit beyond
my means. i think reinjecting is the answer. in the meantime we have
tracked down the builder who did the original dpc in 92. he is retired
but is happy to come and have a look....

wrote:
Observation and common sense led me to my original conclusions which
have been roundly deconstructed above. periodproperty has been tried
and they were of no use unfortunately other than to suggest taking the
concrete floor up
which I would like to do but it's a job a bit beyond
my means. i think reinjecting is the answer.

I think that's your only realistic option. Injection is less likely to
fail if you do it yourself and are not economising on the fluid.
Contractors often give it a quick squirt and hope for the best.


in the meantime we have
tracked down the builder who did the original dpc in 92. he is retired
but is happy to come and have a look....