DPC Installation in Gateshead

A lot of Gateshead damp calls start after something was built outside. A new patio at the back of a Low Fell semi, a block-paved drive at the front of a Whickham house, or raised beds against a Saltwell terrace can all finish level with or above the damp course. Water then soaks into the brick above it and shows inside within a winter or two. Sometimes the right answer is to lower or cut back the paving by a couple of courses and leave a gap; sometimes the new course has to go in higher. We look at the outside first so you are not paying for an injection that the patio will defeat. Airbricks are another casualty of new paving, and a suspended floor that has lost its ventilation will start to show damp at the skirting too, so we check those at the same time.

The 1930s semis of Low Fell often have bay windows on a brick base below the cill, and that base sits right on the ground. Damp in a bay base can be rising, or it can be rain getting in around the cill above it. In Whickham, Ryton and Blaydon, where stone walls are common, the cream is injected along the mortar joints rather than the stone itself, at closer spacing, because mortar lines in rubble stone are irregular. After injection, stone walls get a breathable renovation plaster rather than a hard gypsum one, so that any moisture still in the stone can escape through the finish instead of being trapped behind it. Brick terraces in Bensham and Saltwell get the standard renovation system.