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..!