Damp caused by poor workmanship found during this Home Buyers Survey in Welwyn Garden City?

Home Buyers Survey in Welwyn Garden City finds semi-detached house lacks suitable damp prevention

This Home Buyers Survey carried out on a house in Welwyn Garden City discovered a significant and costly defect with the damp-proof course (or DPC).

The DPC is a layer made with bitumen which prevents the passage of moisture upwards into a cavity wall. It was discovered that this damp-proofing was too near to ground level to be fully effective. At the present height, it could potentially allow rainwater to get into the walls.

All DPCs should be situated at least 150mm (or two brick courses) above the ground, as any less of a gap risks dampness problems in the walls.

It was suggested in the Home Buyers Survey in Welwyn Garden City that the earth in front of the DPC be lowered, to reduce the immediate and ongoing danger of moisture damage.

Poor standard of external rendering

Render coatings to outside walls give them a decorative finish.  The property in Welwyn Garden City featured low-level rendering, which unfortunately was applied too high up the wall – covering the DPC.  This not a purely cosmetic issue to be ignored, as covering the DPC with such a coating can aid the passage of moisture around the course and into the walls.

By effectively shortcutting the barrier, water is able to soak into the structure and the inside of the home, leading to more serious and expensive repairs. In the worse case scenario, damp issues can lead to serious health concerns for the home's inhabitants.

Proof explained in the Home Buyers Survey in Welwyn Garden City

The suspected problems with the DPC were confirmed by findings reported in the Home Buyers Survey in Welwyn Garden City.

As expected, the inside of the outer leaf of the cavity wall, at the front and back of the house, was found to be suffering from damp problems. This was a clear indication that the issues the Surveyor first spotted were indeed having ameasurable impact on the building.

It was prescribed within the Home Buyers Survey that the rising dampness should be more carefully inspected, and then eliminated, by qualified professionals with the utmost of urgency.

This would necessarily require the removal of some of the wall, which could create structural risks if attempted by an amateur. Before any work is carried out, the viability of such a project should be investigated and confirmed by a qualified surveyor, as removal of the wall to insert new damp-proofing may not even be possible without externsive and costly building work.

Miscellaneous issues

The Home Buyers Survey in Welwyn Garden City also found more minor problems with the low-quality rainwater pipes, insufficient insulation in the roof space, small aesthetic cracks in the ceilings, poor-quality fittings in the kitchen, and missing skirting boards.

These problems could still affect the value of the property, and may indicate that hidden components of the house-build were also of a similarly poor standard, and that the construction itself had been undertaken on the cheap and with low-quality materials.