Hi All,
Hoping i can get some assistance, my builder seems to have gone walkabout as I started finding some flaws with his work and after making various excuses that everything was fine he is no longer responding to me.
I was in the midst of a garage to habitable room conversion, but noticed that part of the brick work above the DPC always remained wet. This was what I was challenging the builder on. You can see the picture below were the row of bricks where they are darker. Yes I know the engineering mortar and pointing is horrible. Another dispute i had with the builder. He said engineering bricks don't matter, I said they do when they will be visible! (I had already told him i'm not rendering over the brickwork).
I took out the full fill insulation from the window reveal and the insulation was damp in that area. I thought it might be because of the drain by the front with water standing in it when it rains alot it could splash but even after days of no rain and no standing water this area remains wet. The manhole cover in the image is for the main rainwater that runs along the front. BC said this was fine.
So the second set of pictures is from inside the cavity from looking down from the window reveal and from looking across from the door reveal. It's hard to see but you can see that the DPC is quite inward. like more than an inch. Also you can see alot of crap in the cavity below the DPC. Could it be that the DPC is over an inch inward from the front of the house and this is causing a bridge in the mortar work allowing for rising damp? Or could it be the crap in the cavity even though this is below the DPC.
If it is the DPC being too far back into the wall creating the bridge? What would be the solution? get an angle grinder and remove the mortar above the DPC on that row of bricks?
Finally on the screed has been done on the inside, when I took out the insulation for the door reveal to investigate that damp on the wall, I found that the screed had been poured into the cavity and was bridging the inner and outer leaf, up to 10mm below the DPC. I chipped this away the best i could and sucked out the debris. It was wet and the screed as I got lower down and it was done about 3 weeks ago. I haven't broken the screed which covers the cavity behind the front door but it appears as though they filled the cavity with screed underneath the DPM that was put under the screed. Wouldn't this just bridge the inner and outer cavity? Yes there is a DPM that is under the cavity and it laps up by the front door but if the cavity below it has been filled wouldn't damp get to the inner leaf, i know it won't reach the screed because of the DPM.
Reading on the forum I see people fill this with Celotex or something then put the DPM over the top then pour in screen but it doesn't appear as though that has been done here. So looking at the solution, do i carefully need to break the screed over the cavity (without penetrating the DPM) and clear out all the screed that's in the cavity?
Thank you, I need to get in another builder but want to understand the solution so that I either don't end up in a scenario where someone falsely tells me it's all fine or alternatively falsely makes out that it's a huge issue and tries to take me to the cleaners.
Sorry for the low post.
Hoping i can get some assistance, my builder seems to have gone walkabout as I started finding some flaws with his work and after making various excuses that everything was fine he is no longer responding to me.
I was in the midst of a garage to habitable room conversion, but noticed that part of the brick work above the DPC always remained wet. This was what I was challenging the builder on. You can see the picture below were the row of bricks where they are darker. Yes I know the engineering mortar and pointing is horrible. Another dispute i had with the builder. He said engineering bricks don't matter, I said they do when they will be visible! (I had already told him i'm not rendering over the brickwork).
I took out the full fill insulation from the window reveal and the insulation was damp in that area. I thought it might be because of the drain by the front with water standing in it when it rains alot it could splash but even after days of no rain and no standing water this area remains wet. The manhole cover in the image is for the main rainwater that runs along the front. BC said this was fine.
So the second set of pictures is from inside the cavity from looking down from the window reveal and from looking across from the door reveal. It's hard to see but you can see that the DPC is quite inward. like more than an inch. Also you can see alot of crap in the cavity below the DPC. Could it be that the DPC is over an inch inward from the front of the house and this is causing a bridge in the mortar work allowing for rising damp? Or could it be the crap in the cavity even though this is below the DPC.
If it is the DPC being too far back into the wall creating the bridge? What would be the solution? get an angle grinder and remove the mortar above the DPC on that row of bricks?
Finally on the screed has been done on the inside, when I took out the insulation for the door reveal to investigate that damp on the wall, I found that the screed had been poured into the cavity and was bridging the inner and outer leaf, up to 10mm below the DPC. I chipped this away the best i could and sucked out the debris. It was wet and the screed as I got lower down and it was done about 3 weeks ago. I haven't broken the screed which covers the cavity behind the front door but it appears as though they filled the cavity with screed underneath the DPM that was put under the screed. Wouldn't this just bridge the inner and outer cavity? Yes there is a DPM that is under the cavity and it laps up by the front door but if the cavity below it has been filled wouldn't damp get to the inner leaf, i know it won't reach the screed because of the DPM.
Reading on the forum I see people fill this with Celotex or something then put the DPM over the top then pour in screen but it doesn't appear as though that has been done here. So looking at the solution, do i carefully need to break the screed over the cavity (without penetrating the DPM) and clear out all the screed that's in the cavity?
Thank you, I need to get in another builder but want to understand the solution so that I either don't end up in a scenario where someone falsely tells me it's all fine or alternatively falsely makes out that it's a huge issue and tries to take me to the cleaners.
Sorry for the low post.
