Rising damp in South Hobart, Tasmania

Plenty of South Hobart houses have a wet wall and no idea which of three problems they have. Rising Damp Hobart arranges an on-site assessment that settles it — readings through the wall, the ground levels outside, and a written finding you can take to any contractor.

What we see in South Hobart

South Hobart climbs toward kunanyi / Mount Wellington, and the higher blocks are cut into the slope with the house sitting against the cut. Ground on the uphill wall and a rivulet catchment running through the suburb make this the part of Hobart where lateral damp is most often mistaken for rising damp. The suburb also sits in the mountain's shadow through winter, which matters more than people expect — less direct sun on a south or west wall means less drying, and a wall that never dries never recovers between wet spells.

Why South Hobart walls hold moisture

Two things decide the diagnosis here. The stock is 1850s–1920s cottages and Victorian, which tells you whether a damp proof course was ever installed to begin with — below a certain age, none was. The ground is steep, rising toward the mountain, which tells you where the water is arriving from. Get either wrong and the repair is the wrong repair.

Hobart's winter makes either worse. Nine-in-the-morning humidity across the city sits at 76 to 79 per cent from May through July and there are under four hours of sun a day in June, so a wall that takes up moisture has very little opportunity to release it again before spring.

Getting an assessment in South Hobart

Indicative ranges are on the cost page — injection runs $220 to $450 a linear metre and replastering $90 to $180 a square metre. What moves those numbers most is access and what the wall is made of, which is why the fixed price follows the assessment.

Nearby: Lenah Valley, Bellerive, Kingston, Glenorchy.