Owning your own home

Home saunas, anyone have one?

You might want to try here first.

Mortgage dependant on it? If yes, I'd look for an independent surveyor, PCA is a crock but it does list these as well. Expect it to cost ~£350.
Did they list the findings that showed damp?

How concerned do I need to be?

There's probably a source of it - breached DPC or shitty guttering or similar.

As if I wouldn't have any already... we pop them in the front room window on a Friday night.

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I used David Riley who someone else on here recommended to me, very happy with him. Let me know if you want his details.

Any recommendations on next steps?

Call surveyor. Ask questions. What is the cause? If unknown, what potential causes can be eliminated? What remedial works do they think are appropriate?

Do you know any builder type people? Get them in to take a look. Don’t get a specialist in until you’ve exhausted all other avenues of assessing the cost + risk of putting it right. Which in a flat is particularly difficult due to the split responsibilities freeholder/leaseholder etc

Mortgage not dependant - we have an unconditional offer from the lender.

This is what was said in the survey:

Damp proof courses not generally visible. We would anticipate they were installed and to type they are probably of double layer slate. Significant rising dampness was noted within the property and remedial works are required. Areas affected, particularly but not exclusively include the front bay window and left hand flank wall of the lounge and main bedroom. Timbers in contact with damp walls may also be affected by rot. Instruct an appropriately qualified person to make a thorough examination including underfloor areas to identify the cause and full extent of damage and to carry out all necessary repairs.

Although it does then also say in another part of the survey ("Risks to the Building"):

Testing internally with the aid of a conductance type moisture meter indicated no evidence of any significant rising dampness within the property. Seasonal conditions may affect the degree of penetration.

The conflicting statements make me doubt the legitimacy of the whole report... Have responded to the firm asking to speak with the surveyor to find out more about how they came to the assessment.

Cheers and @soul and @Aroogah I've got an appointment with Harvey's and I'm waiting to hear back from Kinetico (Aqua Sensations don't cover me).

Have you got separate unsoftened drinking water taps, there seemed to be a fair bit of stuff recommending that, particularly for very young children.

You can’t use softened water to make baby bottles. We’ve got a capped hard water pipe under the sink if we want to add it.

The garden tap is also hard water and in the same line so can just get a jug of that.

We’re not using bottles though so less bothered.

Brilliant report writing, I'd take the written paragraph as the correct one, providing you actually have a bay window and lounge and main bedroom are on same wall. 🙄.

End of terrace property? If the surveyor says its DPC is a double slate, then it could be bridged (raised ground levels, render drawing moisture from groundlevel), because a broken DPC is fairly unlikely along the entire length of wall.

Bay windows can have loads of potential sources for damp.

You able to go and take photos?

@jonny Recommended Uzma Malik at MW solicitors, halfway through our process they were bought by TTKW but still trade under MW from what I can tell. She's very efficient.

This is no real help to you but we were in a similar position, and we got DPC done. We were a bit clueless and It was only after we had it done that I saw people online saying it was a load of rubbish peddled by crooks. The house had all of the windows painted shut, no heating apart from 2 gas fires, has no damp proof course and the joists are straight onto soil in a lot of places.

I still don't know if it was the right thing to do, and there is just no point in worrying about it, now it's done. I'm not even really sure what the other options would have been.

Have you got separate unsoftened drinking water taps, there seemed to be a fair bit of stuff recommending that, particularly for very young children.

No. The concern is around small elevations of salt in the water. It's acceptable to us, but YMMV.

Good news, my soffits and fascias aren't as knackered as I feared. The gutters are toast as I thought. My valley tiles are cracked and that is probably where a damp patch is coming from.

Whether rising damp is a myth doesn't really matter that much - if there's damp, there's damp, and it's caused by moisture getting in somewhere.

The hard part is finding out where, as you may need to move flooring, remove render, or dig holes.

Specialists tend to say you need to inject magic foams into your walls, and charge you a few thousand. Then you have damp & fucked walls.

Try the obvious culprits first (gutters, holes, drains etc...), then move onto the harder bits - breached / damaged DPCs, or condensation.

My first thought is what building work has been done around those areas - new floors, window frames etc... Bay windows are lousy for shifting too. Flashing is another bit to look at on the bay roof.

For the flank walls, I'd be looking at the side return / path, and seeing if it's been built above the DPC.

Is it a Victorian house?

yep @Fox - good shout is Uzma. we used her following another recommendation on here. had to get in touch with her recently too as sorting out a bit of stamp duty mop up. nearly a year on still impressed with her.

if you contact her tell her the recommendation came from Vic Roden and Jonny Wilkinson (sold Hackney moved to Suffolk)

I don't have a sauna but would love one. Along with a plunge pool. Sadly my other half is unconvinced and there are other priorities.

My friend has a sauna. It came with the house. It turned out to have been built with the wrong wood so oozed sap and the ~20A heater was wired through a 5A light switch. She has since rebuilt it properly but is on the other side of town so I can't easily drop round for a session :(

We finally have the LPE1 form from our freeholder's solicitor. Colour me fucking surprised that it shows EXACTLY the information that we gave to that solicitor ourselves nearly 60 days ago......

Third recommendation for Uzma here. Not the cheapest but well worth the (small) premium versus an anonymous conveyancing factory.

Thanks, and @Aroogah

No bottles so that shouldn't be an issue but there does seem to be various thoughts on whether drinking it is OK. Will have to look into it a bit more.

I still don't know if it was the right thing to do, and there is just no point in worrying about it, now it's done. I'm not even really sure what the other options would have been

We had 'damping proofing' done too a few years back. I suspect it was over expensive for what it's was. However, once the walls were tanked and what not, there wasn't anymore damp on the inside, so I think it kind of worked.

Addressing the cause of the issue would have been much cheaper; after all, it turned out to only be a missing bit of pvc pipe. However, we only managed to find it a few years later once the whole kitchen was ripped out, including the entire suspended floor and the patio outside. This obviously wouldn't have been an option if your only aim was to 'sort out the damp'. Even if you could have diagnosed it, you couldn't have fixed it without being really destructive.

Personally I suspect it's probably not the right thing to do, probably is too expensive and sold by cowboys, and I can easily imagine that you might just be storing up damage in your walls for the future; but it's not always possible to find the cause and (in our case at least) did remove the damp in the interior walls and plaster and bought time until we could address it properly.

Sounds way more fancy that what I am aiming for but good to know about the wood...

it's not always possible to find the cause

It's a game of trial & error, to be honest

Any recommendation for a surveyor in South London? Last thing to get
booked in for the house purchase!

On this, how long are people waiting for a survey at the moment? Getting quoted 3 weeks till next slot then week to write up.