Just like local knowledge is better than a satnav seeing a dry wall should mean not testing. On a damp wall however still useful for mapping the damp. Not every bric has salt or carbon in them thats why they test 0 when dry. Still more reliable than a builder putting their hand on tje wall and declaring it damp when they really mean cold as their skin is more most than a damp wall they cannot tell.
Experience often trumps gadgetry.
Advice from a property developer and architect for you….walk away from it quickly!
Very expensive but you are dependent on not one but two neighbours who can restrict your access to carry out the work or maintain the property.
Why even ask these questions when there are many properties to buy in France?
!thank you for your advice. It would be dependent on one neighbour only…
The reason I asked the question was to see if others had had this type of problem and were able to solve it to a degree. Whilst there maybe many properties to buy in France of which I have just sold one in Allier. Having separated from my husband and wanting to purchase a property in Brittany to be near my daughter with my half of the proceeds from the sale. There is in fact not many houses in the area I want, at the price I can afford, needing to keep some back for work to be done. Most of the houses even ones at the top of my budget the electrical installation or fosse septic don’t conform and would need doing. So looking at the lower end of my budget and being capable of doing most renovation work myself, I feel that I will be able to put my own stamp on any property I purchase. This property I am going to look at comes within the category of possibilities and character in the right village location tout a gout lovely garden just this one problem that has been mentioned before I have even seen it so just wanted as much useful info as possible. There is another property in the next village which also has great potential but its problem is the roof is in fibre ciment panels which are in good condition but will eventually need replacing. It will be a decision between the two as to which one I make an offer on.
HI………I LOOKED INTO BELOW GROUND DAMPROOFING ONCE FOR MY OWN PRIJECT WHICH WAS EXISTING SO MORE EASILY CONDUCTED ON THE INTERIOR OF THE DAMP WALL RATHER THAN THE EXTERIOR. INCLUSION OF A LANDRAIN IS A MUST IN THE OUTSIDE OF COURSE.
THERE ARE SOME SYSTEMS THAT ARE RELATIVELY SIMPLE FOR A NOVICE TO HAVE A GO AT THEMSELVES SIMILAR TO SAY THE SIKA STANDARD DRAINAGE MEMBRANE SYSTEM. SIKA HAVE A GOOD REPUTATION……SIKA 1 BEING A GOOD DAMP PROOFING ADDITIVE FOR EXAMPLE.
LOOK UP TH SIKA SYSTEM ONLINE AND IT SHOWS HOW TO ALSO FIX YOUR INTERNAL PLASTERBOARD FOR SKIM COAT PLASTER FINISH…….GET THE PLASTER SPEC RIGHT!
YOU MUST INCLUDE INTERNAL DRAINS FOR THE SIKA SYSTEM AS TECHNICALLY IT REMOVES ANY INGRESS TO THE OUTSIDE BETWEEN THE STUD SYSTE M.
LOOK AT UTUBE AND YOU WILL PROBABLY SEE SOMEONE FIXING SUCH A SYSTEM OR ASK SIKAIF THEY HAVE A DISC.
HOWEVER…ANY EATER PROBLEM ESPECIALLY DAMP CAN BE PROBLEMATIC AND EXPENSIVE.
GIVEN A CHOICE BETWEEN A DAMP BASEMENT OR ROOF PROBLEM I WOULD TAKE THE ROOF EVERY TIME. IN YOUR CASE NO NEIGHBOURS EITHER WHO CAN BECA REAL PAIN IN THE BUTT.
THE ROOF TRICK IS TO BUY YOUR OWN EASYLOCK SCAFFOLD AND TAKE YOUR TIME IN SECTIONS. SELL THE SCAFFOLD AT THE END OF THEJOB TOO. NORMALLY STRAIGHTFORWARD AS ONCEYOU ARE DOWN TO YOUR ROOF RAFTERS THEN YOU PUT YOUR BREATHABLE MEMBRANE STRAIGHT ON AND FIX ROOF BATTENS SO YOU ARE DRY BEFORE YOU EVEN TOUCH A ROOFING TILE. YOU CAN EVEN TILE IT NXT YEAR AS YOU GET TYE MONEY TO BUY THE TILES!
Good luck with it.
Nice to see you found the Caps off at the very end
If your RICS trained it is closer to 1200mm
Pardon?
RICS dont believe in rising damp at any level.
All caps is considered equivalent to shouting.
It is also *much* harder to read than mixed case.
I agree that in this world where handwriting has largely become redundant in favour of the keyboard that capital letters are assummed to be shouting however—
Until i moved to France 14 years ago I had no keyboard skills as up to that time I always had a secretary who could type as fast, and faster, than I could talk.
I wrote everything and still prefere written notes to laptop memos. My handwriting has always been in capitals and never ‘joined up writing’ so have I been shouting for the last 50 years?
My old school books do display joined up writing but my style changed when starting work. As an apprentice joiner I was taught to write in capitals so that instructions were clear and from that day to this i gave done so and can write as fast as the next person.
What I find hard is to pick up an unfinished crossword completed in lower case, it looks weird.
THANKS FOR READING 
Hi At our house the entire ground floor is built into the hillside and when it rains the ground water comes up (or maybe the surface water goes down) and flows out of the back wall. Previous owners have built a system with a plaster brick wall in front of the stone retaining wall and a channel just below floor level leading into a pipe flowing out to our barn.
It has later been added to with a plasterboard wall in front of the plaster brick wall with ventilation slots.
In our fist year here we had water flowing out in times of very high rainfall. So I investigated by cutting through both walls and seeing what was happening with the stone retaining wall. Unfortunately when the water flows out it has clay particles in it which settled out blocking the drainage channel. Further investigation showed that the drainage pipe ended halfway under the barns concrete floor. A bit of use for the jack hammer and some plastic pipe and it now goes out through the barn to our well.
Problem mostly solved we do get a little damp on the rear wall but it is more than compensated by the cool air downstairs on very hot days. I just accept that every three or four years we need to do a little decorating. We also get a little damp coming through the front stone walls but no damp proof course and of course the ground floor was originally only for the animals anyway.
Good luck, if you can afford to loose a bit of space this solution is much cheaper than digging out soil outside the house.
My first house’s cave in the Correze suffered from damp in a big way when it rained heavily a spring erupted from the floor and cascaded 25 metres into the next house’s garden I could not do a thing about it due to french old water rights
thank you for this advice . Certainly worth thinking about, I don’t think losing a bit of space inside would be a problem
An update on the viewing of the project. In one way it seemed better than I expected, from what the agent said to me when I made the appointment and a couple of other people I was expecting to see a river flowing through the wall and out the door, but happy to say this was not the case.
But there is a large crack in one wall that goes right from top to bottom inside and outside!! One wall showed sign of damp and as e have had lots of rain the last few days I was expecting to see puddles of wate. I am undecided at this moment and am waiting to see a copy of the diagnostics before I make any decisions. Heres a couple of photos. What do you think?
Uploading: 20220607_143043.jpg…
Uploading: 20220607_142840.jpg…
If you are still interested ask a builder to have a look - or you could engage one of the small number of chartered surveyors that work in France
There’s a list here
There are some caveats. A simple survey will probably cost about 1000€, RICS qualifications are not recognised in France and liability may be limited if they get something substantive wrong. The guy we used does not seem to be around in the trade any longer but I think some of the things he put in his report were not 100% accurate, though they were fairly minor (eg a chauffe-eau which he described as “redundant but could be used” was not even plumbed in!).