Hey guys,

A potential buyer of our house has just had the homebuyer's survey done.
She subsequently withdrew her offer and is looking elsewhere. When the
estate agent listed the details I was knocked for six with the issues
that came up.

Anyway, one thing that was mentioned was that due to damp, the outside
floor around the property needs to be lowered by two bricks. I am unsure
of the implications of this, it seems that a drop of 5 inches will make
one hell of a difference to, for example, entry to the house, exit from
the driveway, patio to garden and also implications for next door's
property which I don't even want to imagine.

So my question is, is this likely to be needed or is the surveyor just
being a bit hyper-critical? The house had a chemical damp-proof course
about 14 years ago, but he said they are a waste of time and money.

Any input greatly appreciated, thanks for reading.

S

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:18:34 GMT, Bob wrote:

Hey guys,

A potential buyer of our house has just had the homebuyer's survey done.
She subsequently withdrew her offer and is looking elsewhere. When the
estate agent listed the details I was knocked for six with the issues
that came up.

Anyway, one thing that was mentioned was that due to damp, the outside
floor around the property needs to be lowered by two bricks. I am unsure
of the implications of this, it seems that a drop of 5 inches will make
one hell of a difference to, for example, entry to the house, exit from
the driveway, patio to garden and also implications for next door's
property which I don't even want to imagine.

So my question is, is this likely to be needed or is the surveyor just
being a bit hyper-critical? The house had a chemical damp-proof course
about 14 years ago, but he said they are a waste of time and money.

Any input greatly appreciated, thanks for reading.

S
What is his justification for saying lower the ground level by two
courses? Is he saying that there is a DPC membrane at this level which
has been bypassed by the surrounding ground? If so then thats fine.
Maybe the base foundations are engineering brick or similar and he
would like to see the ground at that level as they are less permeable?
It doesnt sound like a big issue to me..



Remove antispam and add 670 after bra to email

Anyway, one thing that was mentioned was that due to damp, the outside
floor around the property needs to be lowered by two bricks. I am unsure
of the implications of this, it seems that a drop of 5 inches will make
one hell of a difference to, for example, entry to the house, exit from
the driveway, patio to garden and also implications for next door's
property which I don't even want to imagine.

How far above the ground is the physical damp proof course - slate /
membrane / engineering brick?

If you have to dig the ground down, you could always dig a french drain
- about 6" wide with some gravel in the bottom

So my question is, is this likely to be needed or is the surveyor just
being a bit hyper-critical? The house had a chemical damp-proof course
about 14 years ago, but he said they are a waste of time and money.

He could be being hipercritical - he could also have missed other
causes such as overflowing gutters / leaking downpipes

Charlie

If your house is damp, you need to find the source of the damp and
rectify it - not just add an extra barrier (chemical damp proofing).

Digging away the exterior ground to well below the level of the damp
course sounds like good advice - usually surveyors recommend the
chemical damp treatment without looking at the source of damp.

However we can't possibly know if that is right for your house.

Bob wrote:

Hey guys,

A potential buyer of our house has just had the homebuyer's survey done.
She subsequently withdrew her offer and is looking elsewhere. When the
estate agent listed the details I was knocked for six with the issues
that came up.

Anyway, one thing that was mentioned was that due to damp, the outside
floor around the property needs to be lowered by two bricks. I am unsure
of the implications of this, it seems that a drop of 5 inches will make
one hell of a difference to, for example, entry to the house, exit from
the driveway, patio to garden and also implications for next door's
property which I don't even want to imagine.

So my question is, is this likely to be needed or is the surveyor just
being a bit hyper-critical? The house had a chemical damp-proof course
about 14 years ago, but he said they are a waste of time and money.

Any input greatly appreciated, thanks for reading.

S

damp problems are frequently false positive identified, so the first
question is does your house have a damp problem? This is not determined
by a socalled dampmeter (which dont measure dampness) but rather by
seeing if it has any of the symptoms of a damp problem. A pair of eyes
is all thats needed for that.


NT

It is not recommended to put the outside ground level at the same height as the DPC fior the simple fact that when it rains, water splashes on the ground and then up the wall, penetrating as it goes. 150mm (2 course of brick) is the builders rule of thumb as this is the height at which rain splashing on the floor does not generally go higher.

French drains with shingle or decorative stones should be used adjacent to the wall where the DPC is flush with the ground level

Bob wrote:
Hey guys,

A potential buyer of our house has just had the homebuyer's survey
done. She subsequently withdrew her offer and is looking elsewhere.
When the estate agent listed the details I was knocked for six with
the issues that came up.

Anyway, one thing that was mentioned was that due to damp, the outside
floor around the property needs to be lowered by two bricks. I am
unsure of the implications of this, it seems that a drop of 5 inches
will make one hell of a difference to, for example, entry to the
house, exit from the driveway, patio to garden and also implications
for next door's property which I don't even want to imagine.

So my question is, is this likely to be needed or is the surveyor just
being a bit hyper-critical? The house had a chemical damp-proof course
about 14 years ago, but he said they are a waste of time and money.

Any input greatly appreciated, thanks for reading.

S

The dampcourse is supposed to be at your inside floor level.
The outside floor level is supposed to be a minimum of 150mm (6 inches)
below this, IE you need to be able to step down to outside, it's so that
water cant come under your doors during a light rainfall, also 'splashback'
from when rain falls causes more damp than actual rain hitting the
brickwork, I'd be surpised if any surveyor missed this, so it needs to be
done, the good news is that it's not a massive job, so you can get those
visions of JCB's tearing the gardens to shreds out of your mind! - it only
needs to be like this near the house - I've seen gardens that are two feet
higher than the back door step.
any parts that are soil directly up to the house, borders and flowerbeds etc
are obviously the easiest to tackle and they just require a 200mm trench
about a spade's width diging along each wall, you can stand bricks against
the soil edge to stop it falling back in and put a few spadefuls of gravel
in the bottom to make it look more presentable, this will give you your
150mm clearance.
Anywhere where it's concrete, tarmac or flags will need to be cut, although
flags are easier to take up and cut in half and then you'll get two pieces
from one cut, concrete is about the hardest but a diamond blade will make
short work of it....you can leave the parts directly outside front and back
door, these are allowed because there's no brickwork above and they can be
called 'access ramps' if you like.

Yes the final result will be a 150mm trench all around the house but it's
the only way it will sell, and if you don't pay for it now, it will come out
of the price of the house

Cordless Crazy wrote:
Cant source one for love nor money as they are having manufacturing
probs and they reckon they wont start making them for 2 months!!

Hope you guys/gals can help!!




--
Cordless Crazy
http://www.gms-boilers.co.uk/toc.html try these you can buy online

In message , Cordless Crazy
writes

Cant source one for love nor money as they are having manufacturing
probs and they reckon they wont start making them for 2 months!!

Hope you guys/gals can help!!

I remember giving up with this thread

what, exactly, do you mean by a RB1 relay ?

--
geoff

Bob wrote:

Anyway, one thing that was mentioned was that due to damp, the outside
floor around the property needs to be lowered by two bricks. I am unsure
of the implications of this, it seems that a drop of 5 inches will make
one hell of a difference to, for example, entry to the house, exit from
the driveway, patio to garden and also implications for next door's
property which I don't even want to imagine.


S

Thanks for all the input guys, greatly appreciated and put my mind at
rest. It was the visions of a torn up drive/pathway that were scaring
me, I naively wasn't aware a simple gravel channel was all that was
required....phew....just hope my buyer's mind can rest now

Many thanks again,
S

Bob wrote:
snip

As an aside Bob, can I ask you if you cancelled your original post from the
server? -it dissapeared off my screen within minutes of me replying to it,
although I think my PC is playing up.

Phil L wrote:
Bob wrote:
snip

As an aside Bob, can I ask you if you cancelled your original post from the
server? -it dissapeared off my screen within minutes of me replying to it,
although I think my PC is playing up.



I didn't, no Phil. I've just pulled the headers down on a different PC
an it's still there too. Your comp or news server perhaps??

S

Bob wrote:
Phil L wrote:
Bob wrote:
snip

As an aside Bob, can I ask you if you cancelled your original post
from the server? -it dissapeared off my screen within minutes of me
replying to it, although I think my PC is playing up.



I didn't, no Phil. I've just pulled the headers down on a different PC
an it's still there too. Your comp or news server perhaps??

S

Thanks for that, I think it's the PC...I also highlighted the thread but
several of the replies stayed black instead of going red as they should have
done.
I think there's something afoot with outlook express, or the memory it's
allocated maybe, cheers.