We recently visited a basement flat to carry out a Building Survey in Richmond. We were presented by the Selling Agents with an estimate for damp proofing works. It is clearly evident that some dampness to walls in the bedrooms exists and the estimate for injecting a dpc and replastering was a few hundred pounds.
However we noted that the walls around the master bedroom en-suite bathroom/wet room were damp. We suspected that there was not a rising damp issue but defective plumbing beneath very expensive ceramic tiles to both the floor and also the wall. Further investigation revealed that the waste trap and adjacent pipes were defective and had been leaking for some considerable time as the floor beneath the wet room was rotting. The wet room needed to be stripped out. The final bill is likely to be well over £20,000 plus VAT for a new wet room and luxury bathroom. Our Client was pleased that we demanded that opening up was carried out rather than just accepting the simple damp injection estimate given by the selling agents.
