Before you buy
The building report will flag moisture. It will rarely tell you what is causing it, and that difference can be tens of thousands of dollars.
A building and pest report is a snapshot by a generalist. It is very good at recording that a wall reads wet; it is not usually written to distinguish a failed damp proof course from a bridged one, or either from a plumbing leak. Rising Damp Hobart arranges assessments during the inspection window, which is when the answer is worth the most to you.
Stand outside and compare the soil, path or paving against where the floor sits inside. If the outside is higher, that is a finding, and it is visible without any equipment.
A level stain or a change in the paint finish stopping under about a metre and a bit. Look behind furniture and in the corners of rooms that feel cold.
Particularly a single wall painted more recently than the rest of the room. It is sometimes innocent. It is worth asking about.
Run a key along a joint at the base of an external wall. Powder means salt has been working in it a long time.
Vendors ventilate before an open home. Ask to see the house at a time it has been shut, particularly a south-facing room in winter.
A cement render skirt carried down over the base of an older wall often hides a damp problem rather than solving one.
The age of the stock means a genuine absence of any damp proof course is far more likely here than in a mainland capital, and an absent course is a bigger job than a bridged one. Sandstone adds a second consideration: fretting is slow, expensive and irreversible, so stone that has already lost face is telling you the problem has been running for years. Heritage listing adds a third — it can constrain the method and lengthen the timeline, and it is worth knowing before you exchange rather than after.
Most contracts allow a short period for building inspections, and a damp assessment fits inside it if you organise it early. What you want in writing is the cause, the extent, and an indicative cost to fix — enough either to proceed with confidence, to negotiate, or to walk away. That last option is worth the cost of the assessment on its own.
Send us the address and the date your inspection period ends and we will tell you honestly whether it can be done in time.
We cover Hobart and the surrounding suburbs, from the Georgian cottages of Battery Point to the post-war brick of Glenorchy and Moonah.
Someone comes out, meters the walls, looks at the ground levels and tells you what is causing it. You get that in writing before anyone quotes a repair.