I was originally going to put this survey with the others, under ‘Typical Surveys’ but the seriousness of the matter deserves its own sub-section.  Other, similar events will also be posted from time to time, as they occur.

This isn’t the first time I’ve come across this particular company and there have been at least two, perhaps three other cases I’ve been involved with where, as far as I can see, they’ve blatantly ripped-off the public.  As this one involved a pensioner, I thought it was particularly repugnant.

At the time they were involved in these shenanigans, they were members of the BWPDA (now PCA), and consequently were also able to advertise the Government’s ‘Trust Mark’ logo. Bet that makes you feel better doesn’t it!

I understand they have since left the BWPDA but as far as I can see, they wouldn’t have done so had it not been for this survey and my advice to the client to pursue the matter further. I also understand the North Lincolnshire Trading Standards Office are pursuing a criminal action against them. Consequently, I can’t mention any names.

Other instances involving them have all included ‘cold calling’ on people; offering free surveys and then telling them they needed remedial works done.  In the first case I was asked for a second opinion, which funnily enough was diametrically opposed to theirs.  In the second one, the client had already had the work done.  Unfortunately, her house suffered from condensation, not the rising dampness they treated it for, and their efforts did nothing at all to help; they just cost her a lot of money and caused unnecessary damage to her house.

Client(s)                                   Mrs M

Property                                  

North Lincolnshire 

Instructions                             

To inspect the property and provide a retrospective opinion on the need for a recently installed injection damp proofing course (dpc). In addition, a further opinion is sought on the proposed replacement of 10 (ten) timber joists, which form a significant part of the ground floor in the living room and entrance lobby.                                                

Background                            

The client has lived in the property for approximately eight years, and at no time during this period has she noticed any issues with dampness and/or timber rot/infestation.

On the 12^th October 2007 she was ‘cold canvassed’ by a representative of Messrs ****** Damp Proofing & Building Contractors Ltd (the Company).  She was advised that they were carrying out free surveys of properties in the area in order to ascertain if any of them were suffering from dampness etc.                                               

My client agreed to allow the Company to survey the property, and later that day another representative called.  He introduced himself as a ‘surveyor’ and was allowed entrance to the property in order to carry out a ‘survey’

 According to my client, the surveyor spent approximately ten minutes, perhaps a little longer, carrying out his survey.  Again, to my client’s recollection, his survey consisted of probing the lower reaches of the walls with what seemed to be a resistive moisture meter.                              

He advised her that if the lights on the meter turned red, the property’s walls had a problem with dampness.  She cannot recollect actually seeing any red lights on his meter but was assured by him that this in fact was the case, and that the entire property was considered to be suffering from dampness and would require treatment.

She does she recollect the surveyor examining the outside of the property, although by the very fact he came in from the street, he must have done so, if only cursorily.  She is certain that he did not go out to the rear of the property.

She was not given any paperwork that could be construed as a survey report in line with PCA recommendations.

As a result of the information given to her, she was persuaded that she had problems with dampness, and consequently signed an agreement allowing the Company to install an injection dpc in all walls of the property; this document is referred to by the Company as the ‘Contract’.

According to a drawing, supplied at the conclusion of the survey, and referred to by the Company as ‘Form *, this included all internal walls with the exception of those in the kitchen and downstairs lavatory. Also to be including in the treatment were all external walls, which de facto are the front walls and also those constituting the rear outrigger building. However, as these latter walls were to be injected from outside the property, injection of their internal faces was deemed unnecessary

In order to conclude this agreement she signed the Contract in the value of £1045.75 (one thousand and forty-five pounds & 75p).  She paid a deposit of £10 (ten pounds).

The documents in her possession are: the Contract Form; Form *, containing the drawing; and a ‘Summary of Installation’. There were no [written] explanations provided as to why the treatment was necessary; there were no notes containing descriptions of any moisture meter profiles obtained from masonry walls, or moisture content readings from timbers; and there were no indications as to the general pathology of the building itself. 

The treatment itself was scheduled to begin on Friday 22^nd February 2008.

She did not agree to have the plaster on the walls replaced at the time she signed the contract because, as noted in the contract agreement, she did not want any mess.  From conversations with Mrs M, it transpires that a loose agreement was reached with the surveyor such that if re-plastering were needed, a relative would carry out the work.

Although there is a reference to re-plastering in the small print contained in the ‘Summary of Installation’ document, supplied to my client, she was not made verbally aware that the re-plastering process is an essential facet of a retrofit dpc, and that if it is not done by the company who install the injection dpc, there could be later problems with duality, i.e. it could be difficult to pin down the cause of any problems if two separate agencies have been involved.

Unfortunately, and notwithstanding these difficulties, it is often the case that two separate companies do become involved; but in such cases, it is incumbent upon the installer of the dpc to specify the correct mix for re-plastering.  In fact, only general information regarding this latter was provided to my client, again this is contained in the ‘Summary of Installation’, and it is fair to say that she was unaware that further, severe disruption would be necessary to her property in order to obtain the full benefit of the primary (injection) treatment; always assuming of course that such treatment was actually necessary in the first place.

During the injection process, the Company’s operatives lifted floorboards in the entrance lobby and also in the living room, and from these vantage points they inspected the timber floor joists beneath.

After carrying out these inspections the Company’s operative opined that a total of 5 (five) joists beneath the lobby, and a further 5 (five) joists beneath the living room were either rotten or had suffered from beetle infestation, and that they would need to be replaced.  The estimate for carrying out this work was slightly in excess of £2000 (two thousand pounds).

My client appended her signature to a further contract form and paid another deposit of £10 (ten pounds). However, the work was not to be carried out contemporaneously with the injection process and it was agreed that it would be done at some in the future.  It does not seem that a firm date was fixed.                             

Shortly after the Company had injected the property’s walls, the client’s son, Mr K, became involved, and it is fair to say he was doubtful that the injection (damp) work already carried out had actually been necessary. He also inspected the condemned joists but could not agree with the Company’s conclusions.

To help assuage his doubts, he and his mother commissioned a survey by a local damp proofing contractor, and in addition I also understand he has approached the Lincolnshire Trading Standards Office (TSO), whose advice was to have an independent survey carried out prior to their reviewing the matter further.  That is the purpose of this report. 

Disclosures                             

 I am not aware of any affiliation, financial or otherwise, with the client or the property.  In common with Messrs **** Damp Proofing & Building Contractors Ltd, I am also a member of the PCA (formerly BWPDA) but I have not had any contact with the Company, nor any of their principals.                                             

Limitations                              

Limited to the instructions

Restrictions                             

The survey was non-invasive. The walls in the kitchen and rear lavatory are tiled and thus meaningful moisture meter readings of the masonry beneath could not be obtained; however, moisture content of skirting boards in these rooms was measured.

The distance between the underside of the flooring joists and the solum beneath is in the region of 300mm, and I did not consider this a safe space to physically enter; however, some floorboards were removed in the entrance lobby and also the living room, and good visual access was obtained to those flooring joists beneath the front section of the property. Representative sampling of the joists, to obtain moisture content, was carried out where this was possible.

Date of Survey                         

14^th & 19^th March 2008

Weather                                     

Fine and clear, both occasions.                                             

Viewing Orientation

Unless otherwise stated, all observations are made as if looking towards the house from the front.

Type of Property

1930’s, mid-terraced property with accommodation over two floors.  There is gas central heating and sealed unit double-glazing in PVCu frames.  At the rear is a single-storey outrigger that houses the kitchen, and attached to the rear of that is a more modern extension, which contains a lavatory.  This latter part of the building has a flat roof.

External Observations

The property is orientated such that its front elevation faces in a north-westerly direction, and it has solid, brick walls beneath a pitched roof.  The external walls to both front and rear elevation have been coated with a pebble-dash rendering.  This (render) has not been taken below the integral, blue-slate damp proofing course (dpc), which was installed at the time of construction.

The front and rear walls of the adjoining properties are built with a stretcher bond, and thus one would expect all of the houses in the terrace to have a cavity construction; however, measurement indicated these walls are in fact solid, and will probably have a small ‘finger’ cavity between the leaves.  It is normal for party walls to have a nine-inch, solid construction.

There are two terra-cotta airbricks in the front wall and a further two at the rear.  The purpose of these airbricks is to ventilate the sub-floor spaces beneath the house.  Not only are there not enough of them (airbricks), terra-cotta airbricks themselves are inefficient..

There are clear indications that a retrofit injection dpc has been installed in both the front and rear walls.  The injections holes have been sealed by use of a sand and cement mortar, and several of these were opened.  The depth of the holes in the front elevation was approximately 50-75mm, and at the rear, 90mm.  This latter depth includes some of the holes drilled into the newer extension, which has a cavity wall construction.

There are no high ground levels that could compromise either the integral or retrofit dpc’s.

Internal Observations

In the dining room, which is at the front of the house, some of the skirting boards had been removed, and injection holes were visible on both the right-hand party wall and also the dividing wall between this room and the entrance hall; the holes themselves are sited just above floor level.

The living room is to the rear of the house, and I understand that in this room the skirting boards had also been removed against the right-hand party wall and an injection process had then been carried out; however, these skirting boards had been replaced and the room appeared to be normal.

Internally, I could not see any other indications of drilling and the client advised me that none had occurred on any other walls.

 To summarise: walls that had been injected externally are the front and rear walls, including the outrigger.  Walls that were injected from inside the property are the right-hand party wall, but only in the dining and living rooms, and also that wall between the dining room and the entrance hall. The entire left-hand party wall and the kitchen section of the right-hand party wall have not been treated.

There were no visible or tactile indications of distress to any of the plaster surfaces in any of the downstairs rooms.  The plaster itself appears to consist of a modern, gypsum skim that has been applied to the original backing plaster, which I assessed to be a 5:1:1 mix of sand, cement and lime.

Moisture meter profiling was carried out throughout the ground floor of the property and I would estimate that at least 200 individual observations were made. Two types of meter were used: a Protimeter resistive moisture meter and also a Protimeter electrostatic meter; they (readings) were taken from the existing plaster in areas ranging from approximately 150mm above floor level to a height of 1800mm above, in columns spaced approximately 1000mm apart.

With the exception of one very isolated area in the living room, adjacent to the dividing wall between that room and the kitchen, none of these readings indicated that dampness was present, or indeed that any further investigations were necessary. I did not consider the aberration to be significant.

In addition to surface readings I also took moisture content readings from the skirting boards throughout the ground floor.  With the exception of those to the rear of the kitchen, none had moisture content in excess of 14%, and the majority were well below this level. The exceptions were those short sections of skirting boards immediately adjacent to the rear, entrance door, which peaked at 22%. However, there were no indications of rot in these latter timbers and I concluded that this deviation was probably the result of condensation at the wall/floor junction, the floor in this area being solid.

Base units obscure the right-hand party wall in the kitchen, and as previously noted, this wall has not received any treatment.

The client’s son lifted the majority of the flooring in the front sections of both the entrance hall and the dining room. Prior to this the Company had made only minimal excavations. The work carried out by Mr K allowed a detailed visual examination, and also a partial physical observation (moisture meter readings), of the timber joists beneath..

The joists have been laid on top of 4-inch x 1-inch softwood wallplates; themselves laid on top of honeycombed dwarf walls.  It would appear that the original slate dpc has not been included in these walls. The joists themselves are made of 4-inch x 2-inch softwood timbers.

Counting from the front, the first three joists beneath the entrance lobby have been replaced in the recent past, and the timbers used were pre-treated with a Copper/Chromium/Arsenic (CCA) compound.  They do not display any indications of distress, either from insects or fungal attack.  Their moisture content was <18%.

The fourth joist has been coated with creosote, and this too is in good condition. Its moisture content was also <18%.

The fifth joist has suffered from an attack of wood-weevil in its left-hand extremity, where it rests on the wallplate.  In addition to the weevil attack, there has also been an occurrence of wet rot.  The distress to the joist end, which appears minimal, was not easily accessible and the observations are based on a visual examination and somewhat ineffectual prodding, at arm’s length, with a screwdriver.  However, I could access the joist approximately 300mm away from the end, towards the centre, and from this point on, it is in good condition with moisture content of <17%.  This small section of the fifth joist, together with the wallplate immediately beneath it was the only distress I saw in the sub-floor space beneath the entrance hall.  Other joists in this area also appear to have been treated, with creosote.

The first three joists in the living room, which also include the one spanning the bay window, have suffered from wet rot, although this is now dormant.  The rot has resulted in the ends themselves losing contact with the wallplate beneath and this has allowed them to dry such that they have a moisture content below 20%. Again, counting from the front, damage to these joists is restricted to:

Joist 1 – both ends for a distance of approximately 150mm from each end.

Joists 2 & 3 – left-hand end for a distance of approximately 150mm from the end.

The wallplates beneath all of these joists have also suffered from wet rot.                                             

With perhaps the exception of the first joist in the dining room, which spans the bay window and is only 1800mm in length, I would not have expected it would be necessary to replace any of the above joists in toto. Their original, structural purpose could easily be restored simply by running parallel, stub timbers, perhaps 1500mm or so in length, alongside them; these stubs could be bolted at suitable intervals and allowed to rest on the sleeper walls

Protection for the ends would be necessary but this could be achieved simply by wrapping damp proofing membrane around them (ends). 

The moisture content of all other joists tested beneath both sub-floors was between 17% & 18%. I did not see any signs of distress to any other joists.

Discussion       

The client’s instructions were to provide an opinion on the need for the injection dpc and to comment on the second estimate for repairs to the joists beneath the entrance hall and living room.

The Company did not provide any explanation, in the form of a survey report, to indicate why they felt it necessary to install an injection dpc in this property.  The only paperwork supplied to the client simply indicated the areas actually to be treated - because ‘damp had been found’.  Confusing the issue further, the drawing that provides this information, ‘Form *, seems to have mistaken the position of the staircase, placing it in the living room instead of the entrance hall.

Most materials used in the basic construction of properties, particularly their masonry walls, contain a degree of moisture: they are seldom ‘dry’.  But unless that moisture creates problems, either actually or potentially, for other elements, such as the wall finishes or skirting boards etc, further action is not usually necessary: it can be considered as a normal, ambient level of moisture.  In this property, with the exception of the gypsum skim finishes, which are probably not more than ten to fifteen years old, all other components of the walls are original, i.e. they have been in situ for eighty years or so; and without exception they are in pristine condition, without any visible or tactile indications of distress. Therefore, on that basis one can only conclude that these walls have not suffered from dampness.  In addition, unless circumstances change, which is unlikely, neither are they in danger from this phenomenon in the future.

Unfortunately, damp surveys these days are often carried out with little if any attention being paid to obvious, common sense issues, and the sole arbiter of dampness is the ubiquitous ‘moisture meter’.  Even though the British Standards relating to damp proofing works – BS6576 specifically warns against using them in such a pre-eminent role, very often, other symptoms – or more succinctly, a lack of them – are ignored; if the damp meter ‘says’ it’s damp, then all too often this is diagnosis, and treatment is recommended.

However, in this particular instance, not even damp meter readings indicate problems, neither individually, nor collectively, when used as part of a profiling system. As far as I can see, there are simply no reasons why an injection dpc should have been considered necessary in this property.

I am also aware that the Company’s original inspection, and the injection dpc process itself, were carried out several weeks prior to my inspection; and the client has raised concerns that the work may already have had some effects, which have clouded the issues.  This is not so: in fact, the relatively short period of time that has elapsed between the two events - injection dpc and my visit - will not have made any difference at all, either to the physical condition of the walls or the damp meter readings I obtained from them; and unless something extraordinary has happened in the intervening period, between the ‘survey’ and my inspection, the situation in the property, vis-à-vis dampness, will have remained the same; during his initial visit the surveyor should have concluded that no work was necessary.

In any case, given the time that actually elapsed between the survey and starting work, I would have thought it incumbent on the Company to re-inspect the property prior to commencement; and if they had done so, they should have reached the same conclusions as I have.

The works actually carried out also seem somewhat curious.  As alluded to earlier, the need for re-plastering when carrying out an injection dpc is paramount.  If rising dampness is a problem, the capillary moisture, rising within the walls will carry with it salts, which are hygroscopic.  This point is made in the Company’s document entitled ‘Summary of Installation’ and they themselves class it as ‘important’.   To install such a system in a property without ensuring this topic is fully explained to the client seems to be remiss; however, as noted earlier, the client was not aware of the implications of this.

In addition to the above omission, and once again despite the fact that it is noted in the Company’s documentation, my client was not made aware that under the Party Wall Act (1996), works to the longitudinal walls required notice be given to occupants of adjacent properties. As stated, my client was not made aware of the implications of this and neither was she encouraged to consult her neighbours.  As far as I can tell, at the time the work was carried out, notification had not been given and no further mention of it seems to have been made.

 Finally, although the drawing, supplied to my client by the Company, and reproduced on Form *, is wrong and difficult to follow, it would seem that some walls that have been marked as ‘damp’ have not been treated at all.  In particular, the entire left-hand, party wall has been left untouched.  Furthermore, the walls of the kitchen and downstairs lavatory, although not marked as being damp, have in fact been injected, although only from the outside.  Also, no mention seems to have been made of the fact that some skirting boards in the rear vestibule have a moisture content that could put them in danger of rot.

Turning to the issue of the joists beneath the entrance hall and dining room.  There is no doubt that some of these have rotted or have suffered from weevil attack, and these are mentioned earlier in this report.  However, the remedial works specified in the relevant documentation, also a ‘Form *, but in this case supplied at the time the injection works were being carried out, specifies work to joists that are in good condition, particularly those beneath the entrance hall.

With the exception of that joist spanning the bay window, I would have thought the surest way to carry out the repairs to the damaged timbers would have been by supplementation rather than replacement.  Again, in their document ‘Summary of Installation’, the Company specifically refer to ‘Joist End Replacement’ as a possible course of action, and I cannot see why this could not have been specified rather than complete replacement. 

Conclusions                            

 I cannot see any justification for the installation of a chemical injection damp proofing course in this property.

The work carried out vis-à-vis the above was unnecessary and will be ineffective.  In any case, it was eccentric in its application and does not conform to BS6576.

There is some justification for repairs to some of the floor joists beneath the front section of the living room and entrance hall.  However, I think the works specified are in excess of those required and you should seek further opinions as to projected costs.  If contractual obligations preclude this, you should attempt to re-negotiate the contract price in light of those repairs actually required.

You should improve sub-floor ventilation beneath the property.  This is almost certainly the cause of the rot to the floor joists and may occur again unless the situation is improved.

You should therefore insert a further plastic or aluminium airbrick into each of the front and rear elevations, and the bricks already in situ should also be replaced with plastic or aluminium ones.

I trust the above is satisfactory for your purposes but if you require further clarification please do not hesitate to contact me.

Surveyor