dpm

Hi i have a garden flat in a victorian terrace and am about to undertake a single story side/rear extension. A builder told me we can build using the existing brick garden wall. i have a couple of queries: 1. I presume he doesn't mean just insulate the garden wall. is this even possible? I'm...

Evening Ladies and Gents. I moves into a house with a garage conversion and have been renovating from what the previous owners did. For the flooring they had installed carpet laid over hardboard, however there were signs that the hardboard had become damp over time. In order to improve upon...

Hi, my house is on a bit of a hill so the external wall has previously been painted - I assume it’s a damp proof paint, it’s black and stops just before floor level. It’s a bit shabby and making the garden look a mess as it was hidden by decking previously. I plan to repaint it and Drybase DPM...

During the build of our extension the builder built the walls (outer and inner) before laying the slab. This means the DPM does not go under the course of blocks containing the DPC. Is this a normal practice these days? There is also a gap between the end of DPM in places and the DPC, can this...

I blocked up the old car port to convert it domestic use. It has a membrane under the conc slab but building control say I also need a dpm over the slab and slightly up each wall: makes sense I suppose, it'll have a plywood floor + engineered wood, on battens. What type of membrane do I need...

Hi - I am hoping somebody might be able to help me please. As you'll be able to see in the attached photos, I am getting water in brickwork above the DPM after heavy rain. The affected walls (to the left and right of my front door) are covered by a porch and it is not possible for rain water...

3 old pitch pine joist ends are partially worm eaten at the sides. It's not bad and appears to be shallow only. Easiest to do is double up and bolt ons without chopping off wormed ends. Then again worm may not be dead, though my feeling is it is. Can I somehow treat in place wormed ends in...

Hi I am doing an extension and had a trial hole dug for the foundations which was to 1.4m (deep due to trying to find good ground - point 1 below). The water table was oily/contaminated and ground is obviously made up ground. My council building inspector came out and inspected the hole and...

Hi guys, I have a section of wall that is damp to the touch. This is a stone and brick wall in a building dating back to late 1700’s. Interestingly it is only the last metre or so of the wall that suffers, the rest running across the house seems to be fine. I’ve added some photos of both sides...

Hi I will be using periscope vents to air under a block and beam floor and wondered about the below ground cavity fill. All the regs say to fill the cavity to 225mm below DPC although this will partly encase the vents in said concrete; is that okay? Also when I am at DPC the building inspector...

Hi It seems i'm trying for the record of the longest time taken to do an extension! I am hitting so many problems! After much advice & discussion with several structural engineers and the recommendation of the building officer, I am having the foundations for my two storey extension piled...

Hi All, I have just bought an old 2 story singleskin (no cavity) mid-terraced house that has suspended wooden floors throughout. Ive been hacking away at the ungodly amount of renovations that need doing and come across one that has me stumped... A more recent extension has been built running...

I'll be building a ground floor shower room. It won't be a wet room, but the tray will be directly on the floor. (Concrete, early 1970's, no insulation) The 90mm wide shower trap has pipe invert at about 70mm. Allowing 18mm/M fall, I'll need to dig down to ~ 110mm below ex floor at the point...

Hi, We have a large village hall that we've installed UF heating in - wet system, covered in 75mm concrete screed. We don't have the sufficient drying time so looking to put down a liquid DPM ahead of an engineered timber floor (all flooring, underlay etc is UF heating- compatible). We'd been...

Hello I intend to fit a new ground floor toilet in my early 70's house which has a concrete slab as the ground floor base, which will involve inserting a new soil pipe connecting to the existing set up. I am assuming that in doing this I am obviously going to breach the DPM. So two questions...

Hi Folks, My bathroom floor has had problems with damp and thinking that it was just condensation I pulled the Lino back to reveal pipes in the floor had been leaking. What is worse is whoever installed these pipes had also cut a hole in the DPC for the waste for the bath and never sealed...

Good afternoon everybody, I have recently purchased a house with old asbestos floor tiles. I am having these removed after being convinced by others to screed over - luckily only one bedroom and hallway was completed. The screeding/latex has laminated (like puff pastry) and is breaking up. I...

Hi, I have some quarry tiles which are very firmly cement bonded, good condition and dont seem damp. I want to law some glue down solid oak Parquet over them. My plan is to level the floor using Sika self levelling compound (floor is level but to give me as perfect a surface as possible) and...

hi all I have just laid a self levelling compound onto my old kitchen floor. Some of the old low levels were as low as 25mm from the highest point so I bought 16 bags of 25mm (up to) latex self levelling compound. The area to cover is 16 square meters. I think I haven't put enough down as the...

Hello, I want to stop suspected rain water entering through the exterior wall of my house, and causing damp in a downstairs room. The house is an edwardian house [1920s build, single brick wall, lime plaster. outside rendering looks about 1970s.] --- The room is downstairs with one exterior...