Rising damp in Lenah Valley, Tasmania

Rising Damp Hobart arranges on-site damp assessments across Lenah Valley and the neighbouring suburbs of Hobart, Tasmania. Someone meters the walls, compares the ground level outside against your floor inside, and tells you in writing what is causing it before anyone quotes a repair.

Lenah Valley housing and damp

Lenah Valley is largely inter-war and post-war, so most houses were built with a working damp proof course. When damp shows up here it is usually a bridge rather than an absence — a concrete path poured against the wall, a carport slab, a later render coat carried down over the course, or a garden bed built up against the brickwork. That is generally good news for the owner: correcting the level or cutting the render back is far cheaper than injecting a new course, and it is worth having someone confirm which of the two you are dealing with before accepting a quote for the expensive one.

How the ground works against Lenah Valley homes

The housing in Lenah Valley is 1920s–1960s brick and weatherboard and the ground is valley floor and lower slopes. Read together those two facts narrow the possibilities a long way before anyone has touched the wall, which is why an assessor asks about the block before looking at the damage.

The climate is the multiplier. Hobart is not an especially wet city — about 611.0mm a year across 86.8 days of rain — but it is a cold one, and cold walls under a 78 per cent morning humidity in July do not give moisture back.

Booking a Lenah Valley assessment

Costs vary more by wall than by suburb. Sandstone takes more material and more drilling time than solid brick, and a wall you can only reach from one side costs more than one you can work from both. The cost page sets out the ranges.

Nearby: Bellerive, Kingston, Glenorchy, West Hobart.