Reading somebody else's damp quote

The rule this page runs on

This page reads documents. It does not review businesses. Nothing here names, rates, grades, ranks or characterises whoever quoted.

There is a serious reason for that and a boring one. The serious one is that a trade name attached to a critical opinion is somebody's livelihood, and there is no version of that which ends well for anybody, including you. The boring one is that it is not relevant. A good business can produce a thin write-up on a busy week. A thin write-up is thin regardless of whose letterhead it arrived on.

The argument worth having is never whether rising damp is real — it is whether this wall has it. So what gets examined is the evidence. Does the document say what the external ground levels and paving are doing relative to the damp course. Does it mention the gutters, the downpipes and the garden bed. Does it describe how high the damp reaches and what shape its upper edge is. Was salt looked at. Are the alternatives — condensation, a bridged cavity, a leaking wet area on the other side of the wall — ruled in or out rather than skipped. And is the scope of works specific enough to build from. Each of those is either in your paperwork or it is not, and where a published standard has something to say about it, the standard is cited beside it so the reasoning here can be checked as easily as theirs.

One thing needs saying before any of the detail, because it changes how you should read all of it. This is a Gold Coast and coastal South East Queensland site, and here rising damp is common rather than exotic. The water table sits shallow through the canal estates and the reclaimed low-lying ground. The groundwater is saline and the sea air carries chloride inland, so salt finds its way into masonry from both directions. The rain is subtropical and arrives in volume. And a great deal of the older brickwork on this coast now sits with turf, paving and garden beds built up over a damp course that was at the right height when it was laid. So the useful question here is almost never whether rising damp is real. It is which of the causes you have actually got — because the cure differs, and one of them is a downpipe rather than a damp course.

It is entirely reasonable to take the missing items back to the same contractor and ask for them. A fair number of them have the information and simply did not put it in the document. That is a good outcome, and it happens.

What a diagnosis actually rests on

Start with what a diagnosis is, because the market has muddled it. A diagnosis is not a laboratory result. An experienced inspector standing at the wall reads a set of things that are genuinely diagnostic: where the external ground, paving and garden beds sit relative to the damp course, where the water off the roof actually goes, how high the damp climbs and what shape its upper edge is, the salt banding at that edge, what the wall is built of and how thick it is, and whether an intact damp course has simply been bridged by render, hard pointing or soil. Read together, those tell you what is driving the wet wall. Most rising damp is settled exactly that way, and settled correctly.

A moisture meter has a place in that, provided everyone understands what the reading actually means. Handheld meters measure electrical conductivity rather than water, so salt-loaded masonry can read high while the wall is dry, and readings above 100 per cent moisture content — a figure that leaves no room for the bricks — turn up regularly. It is one input alongside the drainage and the ground levels rather than the finding itself. The Australian heritage guide says as much in print: a moisture meter should not be the sole basis for diagnosing a damp problem. Used that way, it is a useful instrument. Used alone, it is a guess with a number on it.

Then there is the full laboratory investigation, which is a different thing again and belongs in this page as reference rather than as a pass mark. BS 6576 is built on drilled masonry samples. BRE Digest 245 sets out the comparison that makes them worth taking: total moisture content measured by oven-drying and reweighing in a laboratory, and hygroscopic moisture content measured after re-equilibration at 75 per cent relative humidity and reported separately, so the free capillary water can be worked out by subtraction. Samples are taken at a series of heights up the wall, past the last visible sign of damp, and at depth intervals at each height — commonly 0–10, 10–20 and 20–40 mm — because a wall wet from the inside and a wall wet from the outside look identical at the face. Salt is speciated and reported as a percentage by weight, with around 0.5 per cent as the working threshold for concern.

That is a real and rigorous procedure, and it is also expensive, slow and unnecessary for the ordinary wet skirting board on an ordinary Gold Coast brick house. The list below is what the evidence behind a quote should cover. The callout underneath is when it is worth paying somebody to go further.

• External ground, paving and garden bed levels checked against the damp-proof course. The code minimums are 150 mm above finished ground, 75 mm above paving that slopes away, and 50 mm where a carport or verandah protects the wall.
• Gutters, downpipes, stormwater discharge, plumbing and wet areas looked at and excluded, with the exclusion named rather than assumed.
• The height the damp reaches and the shape of its upper edge described, because rising damp has a characteristic ceiling and other causes do not.
• Salt banding and surface bloom noted where present, and accounted for in the scope rather than left to reappear through the new paint.
• The location, type and condition of any existing damp course — including whether it is perfectly intact and simply bridged by render, hard pointing or built-up soil.
• A cavity and subfloor look. A borescope regularly converts a presumed rising damp case into a bridged cavity in about ten minutes.
• Any moisture readings reported as one input among several, with the salt caveat acknowledged rather than the meter photograph offered as the whole case.
• The alternatives explicitly ruled in or out — condensation, a bridged cavity, a downpipe discharging at the footing, a failed shower membrane on the other side of the wall, salt left behind by a leak that was fixed years ago.
• What is proven kept separate from what is inferred, in the wording of the document itself.
• A staged sequence that puts the prerequisites — ground levels, drainage, gutters, subfloor ventilation — ahead of the treatment rather than after it.
• A scope of works specific enough that a different contractor could build the same barrier from it. That is the subject of the next section, and it is where the money actually sits.

How to read the scope of works, line by line

A scope of works is where the money is actually decided, and it is the part most people skim. The test is simple: could a different contractor pick this document up and build exactly the same barrier from it? If the answer is no, it is not a specification, it is a heading with a price under it.

None of the rows below is a document this site produces. They are things to ask for, in writing, from whoever ends up doing the work.

The signals worth stopping on

None of these proves anything on its own. Several of them together, on a five-figure quote, is a reason to slow down for a week.

• The only evidence offered is a photograph of a meter reading, with nothing about the ground levels, the drainage or the height and shape of the damp. The instrument is fine; the instrument on its own is not a case.
• No mention of salt at all, on a wall that is visibly blooming with it.
• No mention of your ground levels, your garden bed, your downpipes or your subfloor. On this coast, a damp course quietly buried under thirty years of landscaping is one of the most common causes of genuine rising damp there is — and correcting it is a few hundred dollars, not five figures.
• The scope of works is a single line with a price under it. If it does not state hole spacing, depth and fluid volume per linear metre, nobody can ever check what was installed.
• A per-metre rate well below the market. This is the one that feels like good news.
• A very long guarantee with no terms document. Twenty, twenty-seven and thirty year guarantees are advertised in this market as badge images. Ask for the exclusions in writing before you ask about anything else.
• Pressure to sign today, a price that expires tonight, or a discount for deciding on the spot. Rising damp is a process measured in decades, and the heritage guide recommends monitoring for at least a year after the housekeeping is done before inserting a damp course. There is no such thing as a damp emergency in a wall that has been doing this since 1890.
• Language about structural collapse, resale value or your family's health used to close the sale rather than to describe the wall.
• Treatment quoted with the cause left untouched — an injection line with no drainage, ground level or gutter work anywhere near it, on a wall where the garden bed is visibly sitting over the damp course.
• Passive electro-osmosis — an earthed copper strip in the wall — offered as the treatment. Water movement creates the electrical potential, not the other way round, so earthing it cannot stop capillary rise. The heritage guide lists it among old treatments that should no longer be considered.
• A promise to inject a concrete slab against rising damp. There is no capillary course in a slab to inject, and an under-slab membrane cannot be retrofitted once the house is built.

The number per metre, and why cheap is the wrong kind of comfort

The Australian heritage guide names the mechanism in print. Damp-coursing fluids and creams are expensive, so there is cost pressure on contractors to use less of them — and the guide goes on to describe two specific shortcuts: thinning the fluid with extra solvent, which leaves the treated course short of water repellency, and drilling the holes further apart than the product calls for, which leaves gaps in the barrier. Both are invisible the moment the holes are plugged and the wall is made good. Nobody can inspect the result afterwards. Not the owner, and not a building inspector.

Published Australian rates for the same chemical damp course disagree by roughly a factor of seven, which tells you the market is not pricing a single product. Treat the table below as a sanity check rather than a benchmark, and ask what the number buys.

What a guarantee is worth without its exclusions

Long guarantees are the loudest thing in this category and the least examined. The question is never the number of years. It is what the document excludes, and what voids it.

Ask for the terms as a document before you ask about the term. Then read for the exclusions that will actually apply to your house: a blocked gutter, a garden bed rebuilt against the wall, extensive repointing carried out over the treated course, a water-repellent coating applied to the wall face, and — the important one — condensation, which is behind a large share of the symptoms these guarantees get sold against.

Several of those exclusions are not unfair, and it is worth saying so. A new damp course genuinely does need the gutters kept clear and the garden bed kept back, and extensive repointing really can bridge a treated course, which is a documented trap rather than a loophole. That is precisely why the exclusions belong in front of you before you sign rather than in a drawer afterwards.

One thing holds regardless of what any guarantee document says. Under Australian Consumer Law you have consumer guarantees that a contract cannot remove, and a term purporting to exclude them is void. A written guarantee is an addition to those rights, not a substitute for them.

A guarantee is worth reading in full, not in a comparison table written by one of the parties to it.

Sometimes the quote is simply fine

This needs saying without hedging, because it is the part people assume is marketing. A fair number of damp quotes are perfectly reasonable. Where the evidence below holds up, that is the signal to proceed.

In practice that looks like this: the ground levels, the paving and the drainage were looked at and are written down, the existing damp course was located and its condition described, the height and shape of the damp actually match the diagnosis being made, salt is accounted for rather than painted over, the prerequisites are sequenced ahead of the injection, and the price sits in a defensible range for the metres involved. That is a competent job, and it deserves to be recognised as one.

There is a second version of the same outcome that people find harder to hear. Sometimes the quote is competent and the diagnosis is still wrong, because the wall was never the problem — condensation, a bridged cavity, a downpipe discharging at the footing, a failed shower membrane on the other side of the wall, or salt left behind by a source that was cured years ago. That is worth saying as plainly as the opposite. But the reverse is at least as common around here, and it deserves equal billing: plenty of walls on this coast are exactly what the quote says they are, and the honest answer is go ahead.

The third possibility is that the diagnosis is right and the treatment is not one a licensed waterproofer performs. Physical damp courses, desalination, drainage and landscaping are other people's trades. In that case the reading names the trade and stops there.

How to get a second opinion

Nothing on this page is a product. There is no fee for the reading and no report to buy. Where work does turn out to be needed, the quote for it can be held up against the one already on the table.

One last piece of practical housekeeping before you sign anything with anybody. Check the licence number on the QBCC's public register. Building work in Queensland above a dollar threshold — commonly stated as $3,300 including materials and GST, though you should confirm the current figure with the QBCC — requires a licensed contractor and triggers Home Warranty Scheme insurance. It takes two minutes and it is the cheapest due diligence available to you.

1. Send what you were givenThe quote, any report or readings, the photographs, and photographs of the wall itself including the outside at ground level. The business name is beside the point — the document is what gets read.
2. Read against the reference pointsBS 6576 and BRE Digest 245 for what a laboratory investigation involves and whether one is called for here, and the Australian heritage guide for sequence, salt and the instruction to sort out the housekeeping and watch the result for a year before inserting a damp course. What comes back is plain English: what the evidence establishes, what it does not, and the specific questions to put back to whoever quoted you. It costs nothing and there is nothing to sign.
3. Have somebody look at the wallPaperwork can only take you so far, and the wall is the thing being argued about. A licensed waterproofer attends: a deep visual inspection, an analysis of the drainage and ground conditions, and identification of the factors actually causing the damp, with a moisture meter used where it helps. Take the other quote outside with you. Reading it standing at the wall it describes is the fastest way to find out whether it matches.
4. If it is genuinely contested, get it investigated properlyA building dispute, an insurance claim, expert evidence, a house you are about to buy, or a wall where two competent people have looked and disagreed — those need findings that hold up in front of a third party, which means drilled samples and laboratory analysis by somebody with no stake in the repair. an investigation-only consultancy do that work: investigation only, no rectification. It is paid work and it is not where most walls need to end up.

What it costs

Questions that actually get asked

Will you tell me whether the company that quoted me is any good?

No. What can be read is the evidence behind the recommendation, not the business that made it. That is not evasion — it is that the question cannot be answered from a document. What can be answered from a document is whether the diagnosis engages with the things that actually decide it: the ground levels, the drainage, the height and shape of the damp, the salt, the condition of the existing damp course, and whether the alternatives were ruled out. That is the question that decides whether you should sign.

What happens if you agree with their quote?

That is the signal to proceed. It happens often enough that it needs saying on the page rather than in a footnote. Reading a quote is not an audition for the work.

Do you need to visit the house, or can you go off the paperwork?

No site work happens on this site at all. Photographs of the wall, the outside at ground level, and the documents themselves are usually enough to show what a quote does and does not establish. Where the wall itself needs looking at, that is a licensed waterproofer: a deep visual inspection, the drainage and ground conditions, and the factors actually driving the damp. Only in the contested cases — a dispute, an insurer, expert evidence, a purchase you are about to commit to — does it make sense to pay a forensic consultancy such as an investigation-only consultancy for drilled samples and laboratory analysis.

They have offered a thirty-year guarantee. Should that reassure me?

Not on its own, and not until you have read the terms. The years are the easiest part of a guarantee to advertise and the least informative. Ask for the terms as a document, and read specifically for what is excluded and what voids the cover — blocked gutters, a garden bed rebuilt against the wall, repointing over the treated course, a sealer applied to the wall face, and condensation. Some of those conditions are entirely reasonable maintenance obligations. The problem is not their existence, it is finding out about them afterwards. Separately, and regardless of what any document says, Australian Consumer Law gives you consumer guarantees a contract cannot exclude.

The price drops if I sign this week. Is that normal?

It is common, and it is worth treating calmly rather than urgently. Rising damp is a process measured in decades, and the Australian heritage guide recommends completing the basic housekeeping and watching the result for at least a year before inserting any damp course. Nothing about the physics of your wall changes on Friday. A reasonable response is to ask, in writing, for the price to be held while you get an independent view of the evidence. A contractor confident in their diagnosis will agree to that without difficulty.

The quote is far cheaper than the others. Isn't that just a good deal?

It might be. It might also be the one part of this trade where corner-cutting is genuinely undetectable, because the barrier ends up sealed inside a wall. The heritage guide names two mechanisms directly: thinning the fluid with extra solvent, and drilling the holes further apart than the product calls for. A third is treating one face of a wall that needed both. The practical defence is to make the quote specific — hole diameter, spacing of about 120 mm, depth to within about 30 mm of the far face, and fluid volume per linear metre, all in writing — and to hold the job to those numbers. If a rate sits well under about $100 per linear metre, those are the questions to ask before you ask anything else.

I paid for treatment two years ago and the wall is still crumbling. Can you review that?

Yes, and it is one of the more common outcomes. The usual finding is not a failed product but an incomplete scope. A chemical damp course stops water rising; it does nothing about the salt already in the wall above it, which keeps dissolving in humid weather and re-crystallising in dry weather and keeps breaking the masonry down. The Australian heritage guide illustrates exactly that case, and its seventh key step exists because damp-course insertion on its own is not enough. On site, the tell is a wall that is drying above the treated line while the damage stays concentrated in the old salt band. If the argument is heading towards a warranty claim or a dispute, that is where drilled samples and laboratory analysis earn their money, because free water and hygroscopic moisture reported separately settle it: negligible free water with high salt means the damp course is working and salt is the remaining problem — a different scope, and a different trade, from another round of injection.