Damp proofing
Covering Harrogate, Leeds, York, Bradford and across North & West Yorkshire
22 years’ experience
Long enough to have seen most versions of a job before.
Public liability insured
Backed by a written guarantee on every job — ask when you quote.
Free, no-obligation quotes
We look at the job and give you a price. Nothing to pay if you don’t go ahead.
Why it matters
Most damp blamed on a failed damp proof course is not rising damp at all. It is water getting in somewhere above — a blocked gutter, a cracked render, a bridged cavity, a failed flashing — and injecting a chemical course into the bottom of the wall does nothing about any of those.
What the job involves
- Find where the water is actually coming in, which is the whole job — the rest is just building work.
- Rule out the obvious external causes first: gutters, downpipes, render, pointing, ground levels bridging the course.
- Deal with the external cause, because until that is fixed nothing inside will hold.
- Then treat the wall itself where it genuinely needs it.
- Make good, and leave it long enough to be sure it has actually stopped.
What it costs
Quoted per job — the cause decides the work is the typical UK range for this work — external repairs are quoted separately. That is a guide to the market, not a quote: yours is free, fixed before we start, and based on your actual property.
What moves the price:
- what is actually causing it, which decides whether this is an afternoon or a fortnight
- how far the damp has travelled into the plaster and the timber
- whether external work — gutters, render, pointing, ground levels — has to happen first
- access, and how much has to come off inside to put it right
When to do it
Diagnosis is best done wet, oddly enough — a wall that is actively getting water in tells you far more in February than in July. The remedial work then follows whenever the weather allows.
Where we do it
We work out of Harrogate across North and West Yorkshire. Every town below has its own page for this service:
Related work
rendering, gutter cleaning and gutter replacement are the jobs most often booked alongside this one.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
How to tell if damp is rising or penetrating?
Rising damp stops at a fairly level line, usually under a metre, and is worst at skirting height. Penetrating damp appears as a patch — often higher up, often on one wall, and often worse after rain. A patch that darkens within a day of heavy rain is penetrating damp, and the cause is outside.
What causes damp in walls?
Far more often than not, something outside: a gutter overflowing behind the fascia, a downpipe discharging at the wall, cracked or blown render, failed pointing, a bridged cavity, or ground and paths built up above the damp proof course. Genuine rising damp exists but it is diagnosed a great deal more often than it occurs.
How long does damp proofing take?
The external repair is usually days. What takes the time is afterwards — a wall that has been wet for years needs months to dry out before it is replastered, and replastering too early is why damp appears to come back.
For exterior work across Harrogate and Yorkshire, please call 07788 585240