Apr 21, 2015 |
Ross Charters of Complete Preservation was asked to give a presentation to 200 members of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) at the Wessex Briefing. He was asked by Geoff Hunt who was Chair of the RICS event. Geoff is an independent expert witness building pathologist based in Frome Somerset specialising in residential surveys on prewar and listed buildings. He is also the author of “Residential Building Defects” published by RICS books. He also edits and publishes “The Architectural Timeline”, a unique graphic which plots the relationship between all major elements and materials used in UK construction from the 15th Century to the present day. www.geoffrey-hunt.com Ross and Geoff regularly work together, and this particular case study was actually for Geoff on the cause and possible repair of a damp problem in a local converted barn in Somerset. The barn was purchased 3 years before where high readings were noted, visible dampness had got considerably worse. Remedial repairs to the wall had been carried out since purchase and had failed. Our instruction from Geoff was a rising damp survey to BRE Digest 245, and to find the cause and come up with a suitable repair that will work. We carried out the survey which was of a destructive nature, this means we removed some of the plaster to look at the floor and wall junction and drilled a vertical profile into the wall so samples could be analysed in our laboratory. In the below picture you can see a salt band, and also in the rectangle box is where the samples were taken from the wall. RICS RISING... 