Owning your own home

Damp in internal walls due to lack of damp proofing

Any suggestions

Depending on how old the house is, sack your surveyor.

[Edit] new page, and I missed everyone else saying the same thing...

How's the MTB going?

I didn't install it and it has worked for the last few years.

There are people with LOTS of knowledge and experience who argue rising damp does not exist and an injected dpc is never needed. I'd not go quite that far, but my in most cases there's probably underlying issues and non-injected dpc solutions

Absolutely. 'Rising damp' and the traditional ways of dealing with the problem (injected DPC) need to be consigned to the bin.

You often get damp at the bottom of walls in old houses but you'll generally find poor drainage, blocked air bricks or raised ground levels are a contributing factor and once these are addressed things will dry out a bit. A lot of 'rising damp' is just the result of rainwater splashing back up off poorly drained / raised hardstanding. I've seen pictures of a beautiful bit of early 18th century brickwork which had been affected by this, and some clown had drilled a huge line of holes across it and injected a DPC (which did nothing).

Old houses will get damp because their builders did not envisage cement renders, double glazing, and having radiators with a load of clothes drying on them rather than a lot of nice open fires pulling air through the building. Address that and they can perform pretty well.

Maybe we've never run it hot enough to trip or maybe the 30A wiring is wrong, maybe it's 32A or something so it's borderline? Either way, there's no way I'm gonna put in the 9.5kw unit unless Mr Sparky has upgraded the wiring.

It's only using maximum current for a short period of time when the shower starts and breakers generally allow a little overcurrent before tripping. It's also possible that the 8.5kw figure has a bit of marketing guff involved.

The breaker has NSB32 written on it. 32A? Or just a model number?

Maybe Sparky will find a nicely charred cable in the walls :)

You're unlikely to find one person who will do all that. I can do all of those jobs but I generally try to avoid doing it all on the same job, too complicated to explain why really, just doesn't make as much sense as getting an electrician, plumber and decorator to do it all separately.

Get an electrician and plumber in and don't bother them to fix the decorative stuff, then get the decorator to come and fix everything up. You can't really expect a skilled electrician to get the decorating right anyway. The decorator should be able to fix the bathroom sealant although it's a job most people hate doing.

It sounds like the job is too small for the kind of building firm that employs 6-12 people and would have individuals with those skills under one banner.

+ gypsum plaster.

We've the perfect storm - cross bonded solid wall, no damp membrane barrier (too early for plastic, too cheap for slate).

In the intervening years, the ground has been raised, and an impermeable (I mean, ffs) path laid, cement parging and render, blocked air vents, cement pointing, lead flashing removed, cement fillets added, gutters damaged and full of debris, and on the inside, engineered floorboards, gypsum plaster, double glazed units.

The drip groove under the front window had even been skimmed over, so rain water just flows down the spalled brickwork.

Surveyor's report showed barely half of it...

It's all fixable though, and I get to learnt how to render in lime and build a wooden sacffold.

There are different types of breaker, B is a common type, they all have different qualities depending on the type of wiring/load they are protecting. Cable ratings allow for a fair degree of overcurrent before they melt.

Whats the pressure at ckt? Assuming you have not got a mixer tap. Also what time did you do the reading?

Do you have a local residents group/assoc/facebook/something? We have an active one here and I'm working through their 'recommended supplier'/'I used this guy and I wasn't ripped off' list finding people surprisingly happy to come over and solve a very similar list of problems (as long as I don't mind waiting 3 weeks for a slot).

You're unlikely to find one person who will do all that. I can do all of those jobs but I generally try to avoid doing it all on the same job

Don't I know it :)

Anyone you'd recommend to do the 'leccy stuff who does Central / West?

There's a mixer in the kitchen but not in the bathroom, I've only put a gauge on the tap in the garden which was 2.5 bar, I think it was around lunchtime last Saturday when I checked it.

Sounds a bit like my place.

and I get to learnt how to render in lime and build a wooden scaffold

It's a great skill to learn. Not nearly enough people know how to do it properly so trying to get availability from a specialist is always a headache, never mind the money you can save by doing it yourself.

Neighbours building their new house about six inches from our fence, we're not in London, they may have fucked up... Called council today, they couldn't find any relevant planning documents so they've asked the planning compliance department to have a look... Bit of an odd situation TBH... Most new builds must be one metre from a boundary, this could be interesting...

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All this talk about leases has got me worrying. Should I extend mine? 93 years left. I estimate it will cost around 7k all in. I might sell the flat in 2-3 years, I might keep it a lot longer. It will shortly be a BTL. Will say 90 years scare off first time buyers?

How are you supposed to walk around the house?

Will say 90 years scare off first time buyers?

No but they'll be aware they have an expense / job to do coming up.

Or they might just make you do it before they complete.

If they are paying attention anyway.

First time buyers won't be able to be fussy about leases. If you're in a block of flats it's much cheaper for everyone to renew at once. We only paid ~£600 to get a 999 year lease done.

Below 90 is an issue so some buyers will factor in the cost - they will have to extend the lease before they sell.
If that’s in London you’ll be looking at more than £7k for a lease extension if my experience is anything to go by.

Walk? U mad? It's straya - all gardens are full of spiders and snakes.

Yeah, but so are the houses and besides, they're fun to play with.

They're not food. Leave the poor things alone.

I'd be wondering how TS's neighbour is going to clear leaves and crap from between the fence and wall.