Now I know this is all about damp houses.. but maybe I should have a mumble about the people that make them damp first..

You see... a house isn't built damp.  Not modern houses, and certainly not old ones..

Now what's an old house.?  English Heritage say its 'a house built with solid walls, using materials that need to breathe'.  That means stone, brick, timber, lime, lime render, lime plaster, wattle and daub.

What that DOES NOT mean is cement, gypsum plaster, sticky goopy modern adhesives and fillers, silicone, acrylic caulking, dulux masonry paint, dulux plastic emulsion paint, shiny vinyl wallpaper, and so on.

So who are the people that make these old houses damp?

Well for one, its Wally Builder - he comes in, sucks his thumb, tells you its gonna cost a lot, and then slaps cement and gypsum everywhere after hacking off perfectly good lime plaster and mortar in the process - he calls it 'renovation'.  A dirty, cheap word, that. Renovation... how to destroy a lovely old building.

Then... its Mr Damp Man.  Now these nasty creatures come in all shapes and sizes, but they are mostly 'trained' by a chemical company sponsored 'association' called the property care association or PCA for short.  To become a 'qualified'  so called surveyor, you need to complete a weekend course with them, during which you are taught how to inject litres of toxic chemicals into houses that dont need them.  You are taught how to convince folks that the woodwork of their house is alive with critturs that need smothering with yet more toxic floods.  These people crawl out of all sorts of unsavoury places - and usually drive grotty white vans.

The common thing about them all is this:  They offer free  'Timber and Damp Surveys'.....

Come on... You know there's no such thing as a free lunch.

The 'survey' arrives with all sorts of diagrams telling you where the non existent damp course has been magically 'breached' and water is bubbling up under the floors everywhere.. so you now need £4500 worth of tanking, slurries, chemicals, hole drilling, and salt inhibiting plastering.  Its so convincing you actually sign the damn thing and have the work done.

Well done - you just got well and truly DONE!  Defrauded.... Screwed...

The so called guarantees are worth nothing.

And all the work does is make the house even wetter.

If you've been screwed by the Damp Man, or Wally Builder, feel free to ask - I'll do what I can to help..!

Fungus the Fogeyman....

Fungus...  

Blame this one on Emma.... I'm now officially Fungus - apparently crawling around under old damp houses, and finding outbreaks of slimy fungus in cellars, attics and outhouses puts me firmly in Fogeyland!

Most of you will know me as Pete from Heritage House - but that's all a bit boring and normal.. I'm anything but that.  This week I've looked at a crumbling old house near Hereford with a timber frame that was a bit rotten and fungus prone, a beautiful old Georgian manor house near Coventry with ever so wobbly brickwork, and an old shop in a Shropshire village that was awfully damp.  The great thing about this job is that I meet all sorts of funny people..

Last week, I was talking to one of my clients - conversation got a bit strained and people called him in the background - apparently he was in Buck House about to get a gong for services to something - he called back an hour or so later from the party...   This week we've had a call from a tax haven about a string of properties that are 'damp'.  Apparently I'm flying out to fix them at some point soon.  Last week we had a call from Malta - a damp old castle - how to fix it.  I'm waiting for the tickets so Em and I can have a holiday.

Two clients are well known authors - good fun talking with them - there's never a dull moment, and always lots of crazy ideas flying around the table.  Lovely houses too - creative people like crumbly old houses with problems.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this blog - I've tried Twitter but its too short - I want to ramble about the houses - the problems - my thoughts about old properties and what people do to them.  Maybe this is the place - random ramblings from a fogey  :-)