Peter Taylor snipped-for-privacy@DELETETOMAILMEclara.co.uk typed: I would suggest you take a look at
Peter Thanks for a reasoned and informative reply, I initially doubted your motives and understanding (the air brick bit) but yes rising damp has effected the party walls on this house to a height of 1m. You did not make any comment re my other post, regarding my proposed remedial work. If you do have any comments I would be very pleased to hear them.
-- Mark
PoP wrote
Hi PoP
This gets complex! As you know, there's all sorts of surveyors. Kitchen fitters, double glazing companies, damp-proofing specialists (etc etc) will all send their "surveyor" to see you. In fact anyone can call themselves a Surveyor. (Compare this with the term "Architect", which is protected by law for registered members of ARB).
But there are various organisations that surveyors can belong to via qualification, which gives them more credibility. I could list quite a few of these, but many have been, or are becoming, swallowed up by the RICS. So in very simple terms, the best way of knowing you are dealing with a properly qualified and expert surveyor is to make sure they have the RICS qualification FRICS or MRICS - ie a "Chartered Surveyor". This term is also protected.
Within the RICS membership there are all sorts of disciplines, just like there are all sorts of specialisations in medicine or law. These range from Minerals and Hydrographic (underwater) exploration, Town & Country Planning, Construction, the valuation, acquisition, management and disposal of property of all types and even auctioneering of farm animals and antiques. These different disciplines are divided into "Faculties" within the RICS organisation. I belong to the Building Surveying Faculty.
The standard route to qualification these days is via University. There are other ways, but they do take a while longer. Some people think this is sad, as it makes it difficult for youngsters with a practical background to qualify but, right or wrong, that's the way of the world. There is a Technician grade of membership now, which is gaining recognition.
Whatever route they follow or qualification they obtain, every Chartered Surveyor has to pass an Assessment of Professional Competence (APC). To do this they must have at least 2 years approved practical experience, prepare a diary and an in-depth summary of their knowledge and experience for approval, and also attend an interview with a panel of senior members. I was a chairman of one of these panels for 9 years.
I hope this was helpful. You can find out a lot more from the RICS itself. They have a Careers section on
Peter
Peter, while I think of it, my parents once had a house where there was evidence of damp in the outside walls arriving through some means.
They had a treatment done (IIRC, it was by Rentokil, although it may have been a subcontractor) which involved drilling holes almost through the (solid) wall in the mortar at about every third brick and chasing some mortar from along the front. A fairly chunky copper strip was inserted and then connected to a fairly serious earth rod.
It didn't require connection to an electricity supply.
The contractors also lowered the ground level outside, although there was no evidence of an earlier slate DPC.
The result was effective and no internal remedial work was required.
Have you come across this at all? Is there any science behind it or was it perhaps coincidence that lowering the ground level did the trick in some other way?
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Mark wrote
Thanks. And I thought you were one of that vociferous and misguided "there's no such thing as rising damp" brigade! :o)
I can't really make any worthwhile comments in your case without more specific information. If you want to email me this and hopefully send me some pics I will be pleased to help if I can - and (despite what John Rouse said) without charge! In particular I would like to see the quotes you've received so far - £3,000 sounds extremely high.
As I understand it, you are intending to use a membrane system - presumably Newlath 2000 or similar. I have experience of using this in many pub cellars and also the basement of a Vet's surgery in 2001. I'd like to be sure you've made a properly informed decision about it. You hear a lot about injected dpc failures, but in fact the vast majority of installations are very successful. There are many damp-proofing firms I would class as cowboys, but there are also some very reputable, knowledgable and extremely helpful companies too (these would all be members of BWPDA). Also there are various different materials and techniques and choosing the right one is very important - most damp-proofing companies seem to promote only one particular system, which makes you doubt where their interest really lies.
Have you thought about doing the damp-proofing work yourself, or getting your own builder to do it? You won't get a guarantee of course, but is that really a major problem? Getting many firms to admit fault and redo the work is virtually impossible, and if your own job is successful then the lack of a guarantee when you come to sell is not an issue.
If you can get back to me with more information I can help a lot more.
Peter
Andy Hall wrote
Andy - I refer you to the answer I gave the honourable member SuzySue some moments ago! (On 19 Jan actually). As follows:
| SuzySue wrote | | > What about the method which I think is called "electro osmosis", where | > a cable is installed at the base of the wall and a small current which | > runs through the cable is supposed to prevent the rising damp. | >
| > Is this a better and/or cheaper option? | | You might get better results by shouting at the wall and hitting it with a | branch like Basil Fawlty. Seriously, it is the least reliable of all | damp-proofing systems. Sometimes it works but nobody has been able to | understand why. In the vast majority of cases it doesn't. And don't be fooled | by sales pitch about active and passive systems - neither is better than the | other.
This is my own opinion about electro-osmosis systems - I have never specified it myself but I've inspected many buildings with it and only seen it effective once or twice. I have a brilliant book on various remedial treatments which gives a lot more info - if you like I can scan and email you some of the pages.
Peter
Thanks for the info Peter.
No it doesn't really matter. This was in the sixties and the work was done as a result of a building society survey. The same survey mandated that a meat safe be provided as well, we never understood why that was. THe DPC work had to be completed within three months of moving in
At any rate, I was never particularly convinced that there was much of a problem in the first place, but the walls never seemed damp.
It did seem a bit implausible that dumping the electric charge would prevent osmotic action through the bricks whcih was what the claim was. People would regularly ask what it was and how much electricity it used.
I remember that there was another system that some people had which involved drilling fairly large holes in the wall and inserting some kind of round ceramic affair. These were supposed to attract the moisture in some way and it then ran out. That also seemed a bit implausible.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
In article , Peter Taylor writes
Best way to find an expert is to use a Chartered Surveyor, but you can become chartered with only 2 years approved practical experience? Seems a bit unfair on the 20 year man who does excellent work, but decided not to play the more paper for letters after the name game.
Every industry is different of course, but in mine, the chartered route is one reserved those who have given up on innovation and are ready for their pipe & slippers, and not the ones to rely on to deliver the goods.
My way to find the best in everything is by personal recommendation.
Extremely helpful! Thank you for taking a few minutes to give such a detailed answer.
PoP
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In article , Peter Taylor writes
Aye, so was the guy who surveyed our house, and he couldn't have recognised a probelm if the house had fallen down a hole in the ground.
Practical experience rather than letters after my name.
Try standing a couple of bricks in a bowl of water and see what really happens instead of pontificating.
J.
IIRC The Building Research Establishment were the ones who said they couldn't get damp to rise in brickwork, so the brigade may have some justification :-)
My own experience of all this suggests that discussion about the porosity of bricks is almost irrelevant given the condition of the mortar between them. In most Victorian houses, replacing it with breadcrumbs would be an improvement. Personally, I replace it with cement mortar, heavily laced with pva and, 20 years on, none of the houses I have worked on has fallen down or shown any signs of degradation in the bricks.
As we've got an expert round the place (for a change) I'd be interested to know to what extent you think modern additives (e.g. SBR) can modify cement mortars for use in old buildings.
Hmm Understandable given my flippant comment ;-(
Briefly;-( I recently bought a property for letting, there is evidence of rising damp along both party walls (on both sides) to a height of 1m, and considerable wet rot to the wall plates and joists were they meet.(But Thank God no dry rot) There is no evidence of an original DPC, the walls themselves are made of a gritty Victorian engineering type brick. I was initiatory going to install a solvent DPC myself but after doing an experiment on one brick injecting 200cc of a silicone water-seal at 40psi
185cc immediately leaked out through the pores of said brick. So I thought I would get some expert advice (sic). Two firms quoted one a small outfit from the local paper, one a large supposedly reputable firm that clam BWPDA and GTP. Both were proposing to inject solvent dpc at skirting level. Nether proposed to make any alteration to underfloor ventilation and when asked about airbricks one said they were too low the other said they were too High. Its also worth noting that both adjoining properties are also suffering dampness their side of the party walls.Later after removing the floorbouards I realised that the void was completely filled with rubble/bricks and old decaying wood from previous Fixes, this filled a 4m skip. On the first wall that I removed the plaster from the bricks were visibly wet to a height of 1m, now after two weeks drying (and almost 1m between top of skirting level and the very wet sub floor) the wet line is down to .5m. So baring in mind that this property is for letting and a chemical dpc with re-plastering will take months to dry out, im proposing to use either a Newton or Trident membrane.
If you or others don't object ill keep the discussion on here as others may in future benefit from any advice you can offer. Thanks
-- Mark
That is amazing, yet you know little about roofs and their insulation/condensation. Gasp!
Not so. There are systems architects in the computing industry.
"stuart noble" >such thing as rising damp" brigade! :o)
I believe capillary action gets water to rise in bricks. A brick garden wall, generally doesn't have rising damp. Put render and plaster on the side and the moisture may rise. Putting a brick half in water only soaks it to the water level, not above.
stuart noble wrote
I'm surprised by that. As far back as 1981 they published BRE Digest 245 "Rising damp in walls: diagnosis and treatment" and it's still current AFAIK. They also publsh Good Repair Guide 6 "Treating rising damp in houses".
I agree totally about the porosity thing. I'm not so sure about using PVA for damp treatment though - that's not something I would have immediately thought of as damp-resistant. Why don't you use a waterproofer additive?
Firstly, please don't hold me out as an any more of an expert than a good number of other folk on this newsgroup. I think we are extremely fortunate to have a wealth of knowledge and experience in many fields. Sadly, we also have a few people who feel they need to pontificate on things they know little about.
I do have personal experience of many aspects of designing and constructing buildings as well as their defects, maintenance and restoration. But, like everybody else, I don't know everything and have to research things when necessary. As far as additives are concerned my knowledge is limited - I have experience of epoxy resin additives for repairing damaged concrete and also fast-curing screeds like Isocrete K with fibre reinforcement. As far as mortars go, I have never used additives other than anti-freeze, plasticisers and waterproofers, and the only use of SBR I know anything about at present is thin latex screeds.
Generally speaking I have a deep distrust of "modern" materials in repair and restoration work on old buildings. Half the time they seem to be by-products of some other manufacturing process, (eg Synthaprufe) or else they are cheap alternatives (bitumen felt v lead sheet roofing), and they never seem to have the same durability as original natural materials. For instance, I cringe when I see adverts for Thompson's Silicon Waterproofer for external walls, as I've seen several houses where the face of the stone or brick has been severely damaged by frost action on moisture retained by this type of coating. I'm not totally against all modern materials though - I used epoxy resin and stainless steel rods to repair some large oak beams at Hampton Court Palace that had been severely damaged by Death Watch Beetle.
Does that answer your question OK?
Peter
fred wrote
2 years is the minimum. We were talking about PoP's kids here Fred, there is a different route for more mature candidates. Also there are distance learning courses if you don't want to go to Uni.That's certainly not the case with Chartered Surveyors. But innovation is the not necessarily the most important thing. Experience and the wisdom that comes with age are also in that bracket.
OK, but if everyone did that the world would stop. It needs one person to take the plunge with a new contact to be able to recommend in the first place. There are good and bad, able and less able in all walks of life. It's human nature.
Peter
"IMM" wrote
Every time you argue with me you shoot yourself in the foot. You just make yourself look more and more stupid. The term Architect is protected by the Architects Act 1997, clause 20(1) of which states:
"A person shall not practise or carry on business under any name, style or title containing the word "architect" unless he is a person registered under this Act."
Clause 20(2) goes on "Subsection (1) does not prevent any use of the designation "naval architect", "landscape architect" or "golf-course architect"."
Peter
I don't, I show you up.
You just make
Does that include "systems architects"?
Not in the UK, there isn't. At least not legally.
Christian.
It is an official job title in many companies, in the employment contract. Then jobs are advertised with the title. As with a building architect, he puts together an outline of the functionality and features a customers wants/needs. He goes as far as he can in specification. His work is used to price up on in many cases. Then people more specialist skills in certain areas take over: networking, databases, etc.
A building architect does similar; when designing a large building has to give the drawings to a structural engineer to see if it is feasible, a speciality he cannot do. Engineers regard the architect as the one who fixes the builings size, fuction, sizes the reception and gives colour schemes.
Looked at some IT jobs......
SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT - TYPE: Permanent LOCATION: North East SALARY: UP TO £100K + FLEXIBLE BENEFITS PACKAGE
DIRECTOR GLOBAL APPLICATIONS ARCHITECT TYPE: Permanent LOCATION: London (excl city) SALARY: COMPETITIVE POSTED: 10th February 2004
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