Independent damp surveys in Barnet
Barnet is mostly interwar suburb on London clay, with one important exception: Hampstead Garden Suburb, which is an Arts and Crafts conservation area governed by covenants as well as by planning. What can be done to a house there is unusually restricted, and a report that ignores that is not much use.
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Barnet housing, and what it does when it gets wet
The Garden Suburb houses are roughcast rendered or brick, built to a designed aesthetic that the Trust and the conservation area exist to preserve. External alterations, replacement windows and anything visible are tightly controlled, and the original roughcast is a lime based, permeable finish. Where it has been patched or overcoated in cement or modern masonry paint, the wall stops drying, and the damp that follows is routinely misattributed. The remedy has to be permeable and it has to be approvable.
The wider borough, through Finchley, Mill Hill, Whetstone and Barnet itself, is cavity walled interwar and post-war semi with a working damp proof course. Ground level is the recurring cause: eighty years of resurfaced drives and patios have raised the external ground above the course on a great many of these houses. The symptom looks exactly like rising damp and the fix is drainage.
The clay subsoil is worth noting because of what it does to drainage runs rather than to walls directly. Clay shrinks and swells seasonally, and mature trees are common across the borough, so displaced or fractured drains under solid floors are more frequent here than in the chalk boroughs. A cracked drain produces persistent, localised damp that responds to nothing done to the wall above it.
What we are usually called out to in Barnet
- Cement patching and modern masonry paint over permeable roughcast render in the Garden Suburb
- Ground levels raised above the damp proof course after successive drives and patios
- Fractured or displaced drains under solid floors on shrinkable clay
- Blocked airbricks and musty suspended timber ground floors
- Conservation and covenant restrictions ruling out the external repair proposed
- Slumped or bridging retrofit cavity wall insulation on weather exposed elevations
Which kind of damp is it?
In a London building the same stain can have four or five different causes, and in Barnet we regularly find two at once. Water rising from the ground through a wall with no working course. Rain entering through a parapet, a gutter, a cracked render or a window head. Moisture from the air condensing on a cold wall. Water from a pipe, a bath seal or a flat upstairs. Each needs a different repair and, in a shared building, often a different person to pay for it.
Our readings are taken to separate them: at depth as well as at the surface, at heights up the wall, on either side of the damp, and alongside humidity and surface temperatures. The pattern, not a single number, is what the diagnosis rests on.
How we survey a Barnet property
- Externally first: the elevations, the ground or paving against them, and every route water has to the wall
- For flats, the parts of the building outside the demise that can be seen or reasonably reached
- Readings that distinguish surface salts from moisture in depth, rather than a single pin meter figure
- Dew point conditions in the affected rooms, logged and compared with the coldest surfaces
- Ventilation measured, not assumed from the presence of a fan
- Previous damp treatments identified, with whether they addressed the cause
What you receive
A written report with photographs within 24 hours, in plain English, that stands on its own whoever reads it.
- Findings by room and by elevation
- Readings and the pattern they form
- The diagnosis, and the causes considered and excluded
- Recommendations in priority order
- Notes for a purchase, a lease or a disrepair matter where relevant
- A clear line where a quote you hold for a Barnet property goes further than the defect
How a survey is arranged
- Tell us the postcode, the property type and what has been noticed.
- We confirm the fee and the time. It does not change on the day.
- On site, outside first, then inside, with findings explained before we leave.
- The report arrives within a day, ready to forward to a solicitor, agent or freeholder.
Most of our Barnet surveys are for one of four people: a buyer whose survey flagged damp, a tenant or landlord with mould, a leaseholder trying to get a freeholder to act, or an owner holding a damp proofing quote. Each needs the same thing, an account of the cause from somebody with no interest in the remedy, and that is all we provide. Quoted for damp proofing already? Read damp proofing in Barnet: survey first.
Leaseholders, landlords and buyers in Barnet
Leaseholders in Barnet often discover that the cause of their damp sits in a part of the building they do not own. Our report says where the water is coming from and which element of the building it passes through, which is the evidence a freeholder or managing agent needs under the lease. For landlords, damp and mould are hazards under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, and social landlords in England now work to the fixed timescales of Awaab's Law. Our guide to Awaab's Law explains what that means.
By town
Finchley and Whetstone
Interwar semis and terraces, with Victorian streets near the centres. Driveways paved above the damp proof course and extensions with floors set too high are the most common causes of damp.
Hendon, Golders Green and Mill Hill
A mix of Edwardian, interwar and post war housing, some on slopes. Sloping plots send water at the uphill wall, and London clay holds it there through winter.
Hampstead Garden Suburb
Arts and Crafts houses in a conservation area with covenants managed by the Trust. Repairs must respect the design, and damp is usually rainwater, ground level or ventilation rather than anything that needs damp proofing.
Where we cover
We survey across the borough, from Golders Green and Hendon up through Finchley and Mill Hill to High Barnet.
- Finchley
- Hendon
- Mill Hill
- Golders Green
- Whetstone
- Edgware
- High Barnet
- Totteridge
- Hampstead Garden Suburb
Postcode districts
- N2
- N3
- N11
- N12
- N20
- NW4
- NW7
- EN4
- EN5
What customers say about us
We had this company at my parents house to survey. Professional and polite. Good communication and on time for appointment.
Jacqueline Stokes, on Google
Massive thanks to Ben and the team, came over very quickly, very professional and at a great cost.. wld recommend them all very highly
Track day Junkie, on Google
Barnet questions
We are in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Does that change the survey?
It changes what can be recommended, which is most of the value. The Suburb is both a conservation area and subject to a scheme of management, so external alterations are controlled more tightly than almost anywhere else in outer London. It also means the original render is a permeable finish that has often been overcoated with something that is not. We survey with the constraint in mind and recommend repairs that are both correct for the fabric and capable of being approved.
The damp keeps coming back in one spot on a solid floor. What causes that?
A persistent, localised damp patch on a ground floor that does not respond to anything done to the walls very often means water below the slab, and on this borough's clay the usual reason is a fractured or displaced drain. Clay moves seasonally and mature tree roots find joints. It is worth lifting the manhole covers and checking the runs before anyone specifies a floor treatment, because a treatment over a live leak will simply fail again.
Does London clay make damp worse in Barnet?
It can. Clay drains slowly, so gardens stay wet and water lingers against walls, especially where ground levels have risen. It also moves with the seasons, which can crack drains. The survey checks ground levels and drainage first.
Do we need the Trust's consent to fix damp in Hampstead Garden Suburb?
Many external changes need consent from the Trust and the council. The report flags where that is likely, and favours repairs that are generally acceptable, such as like for like rainwater and drainage work.
Our bungalow in Edgware has mould on the ceilings. Why?
Often cold spots at the ceiling edge where loft insulation stops short of the eaves, together with humidity. Measurements show how much is the building and what will help.
Will you try to sell me damp proofing in Barnet?
No. We carry out no remedial work, so there is nothing to sell after the survey. The report states the cause, the work that would actually fix it and an outline of what that work should reasonably cost, so you can get like for like quotes from contractors of your choice, or put it to a seller, landlord or freeholder.
Nearby
Book a damp survey in Barnet
We survey and report only, with no treatment to sell, so what the report says is the whole of our interest. Same day response to every enquiry, and a written report with photographs within 24 hours of the visit.
Book a survey or call 020 3355 4944