I have just had a Homebuyers Report on a property that I am buying.
Under the HBR layout items are rated in three categories. Most of the items are 1, and a couple of small items 2 ( i.e ridge tile pointing etc).
However under "Dampness, rot" categories, this is rated as "3". Dampness is affecting the ground floor walls. I suspect this is due to defective damp proofing treatment and/or contaminated plaster"
Is it acceptable to ask the vendor to remedy this? How would others handle this?
Ask for disclosure of any guarantees and invoices relating to the damp proofing treatment. Ask if the vendor can invoke the guarantee (if there is one, and if the company is still in business) which in practice means they might inject the treatment again, free of charge. Failing that (and most common) you should get an estimate for the cost of having the damp rectified, and ask for the sale price to be reduced to reflect that work.
Most houses have some dampness. Have a look and see whether it is obviously unsightly. And whether it looks as if the vendor has done a quick paint job to disguise the damp. If they won't reduce the price, you might decide it is still worth the money and that you can get the damp sorted out in a year or so when you have more cash to spend.
Just about every report says this.
Are the decorations new? If not, any signs of damp? If the decor is new and confined to the ground floor there might be grounds for suspicion.
The 'instrument' used for measuring water content in plaster is notoriously unreliable and more so if not correctly calibrated for the type of plaster/wall construction.
I'm not saying there can't be damp. Just don't take a cheap survey's word for it. You need something like a structural engineer to give a true picture.
Well said. AIUI, the instrument only measures surface resistivity, which is no reliable guide to the dampness in the structure behind, they are calibrated for one material and used in others, and in this respect most "users" (surveyors) are clueless.
The OP would be well-advised to visit
When we bought our house, the survey the building society did (which claimed there was damp in one wall) conveniently came with a quote from an "approved" contractor to rectify said damp. The cost of the quote was around £400. We simply got the vendor to drop the price of the house, bought it and did nothing as there was no noticeable signs of damp anyway.
Nice to save £400 though!
Hear hear, damp on survey means as much as the paper ts written on. Anyone can determine whether theres a damp problem for themselves simply by looking up the symptoms of a damp problem and seeing if there are any. If there arent, there isnt one. And this is frequently how it turns out to be.
I believe it was the BRE that built various walls standing in water and found no rising damp.
If OTOH there is a damp problem, its very unlikely to be anything to do with the dpc, or absence of one, since most of what is diagnosed as rising damp isnt, its generally condensation or penetrating damp, hence retrofitted dpcs are rarely effective. And chemical injection doe not provide a full dpc, despite what may be claimed.
NT
You really must stop bringing up this old chestnut. If there's no such thing as rising damp, then all dpcs are a waste of time and should be removed from the building regs forthwith
if you say so
NT
if you say so after all theres no possible question of you not having read up on the subject.
NT
It's pretty academic whether you believe it or not AFAICS because the mortgage lenders do, and are likely to insist on remedial (or not) work being undertaken as a precondition of the mortgage.
David
Grown ups can engage somebody with greater expertise who can report on the real extent and cause of the problem, and the result is not normally a dpc. In a lot of cases there simply isnt a problem in the first place. The result is solution of the problem and saving most of the cost of pointless work.
The real solutions to condensation and penetrating damp usually, but not always, cost peanuts.
NT
It's rocket science is it?
I think the BRE's own estimate is that 90% of "rising damp" is some other problem (most likely a leak, penetrating or damp, or condensation).
The "old chestnut" is not that rising damp doesn't exist, but that its diagnosis is widely over-stated, and leads to many house-owners having expensive and unnecessary work done (which will probably not cure the real problem either).
I think the questions with damp should be:
1=2E Does it smell? 2=2E Is there mould on the wall?If not get over it.
Fortunately the surveyor who did my place recognized that whilst there was some damp, people had been living there quite happily since ~1750 so didn't make a big deal of it. My personal experience is don't get a homebuyers survey done at all. The minimal valuation usually causes less problems since they aren't looking so hard. Then if you want the information from a homebuyers survey pay yourself to get it done separately. The problem with a normal homebuyers survey is that whilst you're paying for it the surveyor is not working for you. This is madness. The basic valuation is often done for free by the mortgage company and why would you want to give them more information than they need, so that they can use it against you. If the OP had had a private survey he could still use it to negotiate with the vendor but the Bank/BS couldn't also use it to clobber him.
All house surveys are generally crap unless you own the place since they can't move furniture, look behind the wall paper etc. This is also why they're filled with caveats like "we were unable to ascertain that..." "The purchaser should check that...". Waste of good money.
Fash
I've done my own experiment: it's called my extension. Soft red bricks on the quoins, now disintegrating from frost damage below dpc level where they are wet and 100% sound above dpc level.
Our mortgage lender did, but have so far not checked to make sure we have (two and a half years so far). I know of at least two other people who have done the same.
I have to agree. I've never seen a case of rising damp. The BRE 90% sounds like a don't know but cover my arse kind of figure. Maybe this would all be a bit more relevant if it rained as much as it used to.
My recollection of the report was that they found rising damp was far harder to create than was expected. They did find some evidence of it in walls built with very soft bricks and sandy lime mortar.
Correct - it is intended to measure the dampness in wood. I have a similar damp problem here in the house I bought last February. I knew about it but the price reflected it. Investigating further I discovered that attempts had been made to damp proof the one wall in question (from lots of holes drilled) but had clearly failed. I had another go and the very expensive damp prooof liquid just drained away between the mortar joints which had long turned to dust. Most damp proof companies also rerender using damp proof render, which is tantamount to an admission that the damp proofing exercise is a waste of time and they are simply sealing in the damp. The only problem is that the render is so dense that it encourages condensation and so we are back to a damp problem!!!
Maris
This may well be true. Where I have a damp problem, the bricks appear to be very soft red stocks, which crumble into pieces when removed (as I did when installing French doors where there was a sash window).
Maris
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