House survey highlighted damp problems around chimney stack

[Djwilliams37]

Hi
I am in the process of selling my house and my buyer after putting in his offer on the house 3 months ago decided to have a home buyer survey performed. The survey has flagged high damp readings taken in the internal roof void indicating water ingress from the chimney stack area. I converted the attic into a small gaming room for my son around 6 years ago and I insulated the unlined roof with insulation board and plaster board. The area has been used often and we have never seen any damp there. I had the flashing replacement 25 years ago as it was leaking when we moved in. The survey has asked for details of the extent of the works done on converting the attic and I am unsure of how much detail to give as I guess only the solicitor and client will see any information I give. I am unsure how to proceed with these matters

 

[Djwilliams37]

Hi
I have taken some pics of the chimney stack area and the only area that I could see was on the rhs of the stack there is the plaster showing through. The external pics are the roof outside this area. I cannot feel any damp on any of the internal areas. A couple of the tiles look a bit wonky but seem to be okay
Cheers
Dave

 

[Oldguy]

Hi Dave.
You say the flashing round the stack was replaced 25 years ago but the photos of the outside of the stack show only one odd piece of flashing. Whoever did it must have instead run a fillet of cement around the join between stack and roof tiles. When the roof was last re-tiled, the circumference of the stack should really have been flashed with lead or similar flashing, the upper edge of each piece channelled into the brickwork of the stack, its lower (horizontal) part lapped with the pieces above and below. Clearly this hasn't happened and instead someone has relied on the rendering of the stack to perform that task. This might be alright but particularly with driving rain, you are bound to get some degree of soakage above the roof slope through the rendering into the brickwork and thereafter down the stack into the roof space. I don't think this is anything to do with your attic conversion works, but that the degree of moisture in the brickwork has always been there, maybe not as running water leak but just as damp brickwork.
I think you should just be straight about what work was comprised in your attic conversion and say that this would have absolutely no effect on encouraging damp, though they may say in response "Okay well the flashing needs redoing properly".

 

[Djwilliams37]

Hi Thanks for your information that is most useful. I am at the moment consulting a roofer that I know from my old kung fu club about this. I am hoping that we can make good or at least better the flashing and tiles around the roof area. I think the attic conversion is OK as I have told the solicitor that it was only converted so my son could play computer games up there. Sorry, I was wrong about the flashing the roofer said only the front needed replacing and was reluctant to touch the back as he said it was OK and tampering with it would mean the neighbours flashing would need replacing also
Cheers
Dave