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Damp Proofing

Damp proofing your home is a uniquely specific type of job. It requires that you hire a tradesman with extensive experience, knowledge and understand of how to properly damp proof a home. Hiring someone to damp proof your home who’s not a specialist can mean expensive damage, rot, or even mold to develop within your home.

When you’re looking for a damp proofing specialist for proofing work around your home, there are some things you want to be looking for and aware of throughout the entire process. We spoke with some of the highest rated and reviewed damp proofing specialists here on the ClickATrades site, to find out what exactly these things are:

  • Learn some of the basic knowledge about damp proofing before meeting with potential tradesmen.
  • Do they have relationships with product manufacturers?
  • Be sure to be there when they survey your home.
  • Review the report thoroughly to ensure it contains certain information.
These are a few things we’re going to look at in more depth.

It’s smart when you’re considering someone to do the damp proofing work on your home, that you learn as much as you can about what exactly they’re going to be doing and how.

When it comes to damp proofing, there are a few types of damp within the UK that occurs in homes and will require damp work to maintain. Rising damp, penetrating damp, and condensation are the major types of damp that you should be aware of when you’re needing damp proofing work done in your home. Each of them requires a unique set of skills and knowledge to prevent and proof your home for. Knowing even a little bit about each of them will allow you to not be ripped off by someone that claims to be able to do the work, but can’t.

When it comes to damp proofing specialists in the UK, they usually fall within three categories:

  • Specialists that aren’t employed by an acutal damp proofing company, but that have extensive experience in damp work as well as have commercial agreements with one or more product manufacturers.
  • Specialists that work for a large damp proofing company. Usually these very companies are the same ones that make the damp proofing materials they’ll be using in your home.
  • Completely independent specialists.

Whichever type of specialist you’re looking to hire to do the damp work on your home, be sure that you find out which category they fall under above. Have at least three specialists come out to your home to do an initial survey and inspection on the damp work needed as well.


Make sure that when you schedule a specialist to come out and do a survey on your property, or even one you’re planning to buy, that you also are there when the survey happens.

This is important because it will allow you to see firsthand how thoroughly they’re conducting their inspection. You can bet in most cases the way in which they conduct their initial inspection of the job, is exactly how they will work on the job.

Be sure that when they’re doing their inspection they are looking for a few things:

  • Inspecting the outside of the property, to find out if there is a source of any potential damp occurring to the building. They will look for the location of things like the gutters, external water pipes, and such. They will also look for water damage.
  • They will ask if any damp work or damage has been done or occurred to the home in the past.
  • A thorough inspection of the inside of the property looking for signs of damp.
  • Do a test in the home using a moisture meter.

After the initial visit from a specialist you will receive a report of the potential or actual damage and the work that will need to be done. You should receive a report that contains the following:

  • What they actually found.
  • Results of their moisture meter and what it means.
  • What they believe the damp issue is.
  • How they are going to fix the damp issue or damage.
  • How much the work and materials will cost.
Once you get at least three reports from three different specialists you will be able to get a better picture of which damp proofing specialist is best to do the damp work on your home.

These are a few of the things to be looking for when you’re considering hiring a damp proofing specialist for any damp work needed on your home. You can find detailed reviews and recommendations from other specialists on our ClickATrades site as well!