Damp proofingin Edgwareand along the Edgware Road

The classic finding on an Edgware semi is a tide mark at a fairly consistent height on the ground floor, with hollow plaster and salt bloom close to the front or party wall. Where the original bitumen damp proof course has genuinely broken down, we inject a new chemical DPC using an accredited Sovereign or Wykamol system, then strip the salt-contaminated plaster and replace it with a salt-retardant system.

But on this stretch of Middlesex, bridging is at least as common as DPC failure, and the side alley is usually the first place to look. Where paving has been laid above the original path level, correcting that bridge, rather than injecting a new DPC into a wall that never needed one, is often the smaller and more honest job.

We check both possibilities at survey and explain which applies before any price is put in writing.

A huge amount of Edgware's housing stock carries pebbledash or hung tiles to the first floor, a finish that was popular and durable when new but is now approaching a hundred years old on many houses. Once it cracks or debonds from the substrate, it holds rainwater against the wall rather than shedding it, and the resulting damp patch indoors can be large and slow to dry.

We cut out and make good failed pebbledash sections, re-fix or replace slipped and cracked hanging tiles, and reinstate proper sill and drip details so water is thrown clear rather than tracking back into the wall.

In the Canons Park and Edgwarebury area, and generally the further you move from the Edgware Road towards Stanmore, clay subsoil becomes more of a factor. Long dry spells shrink the clay, shallow interwar foundations move slightly, and diagonal cracks open at bay window corners and above door and window heads.

Not every crack needs a structural engineer, and not every crack is purely cosmetic either. At survey we look at the width, direction and location of cracking, check for progression, and where it is appropriate carry out helical brick stitching to tie the masonry back together and stop the crack reopening on the next dry summer.

Because so many Edgware semis have a narrow side alley shared with the neighbouring house, that strip of ground has usually been resurfaced more than once over ninety-plus years, and rarely to the original level. Each resurfacing tends to creep the level up a little, and each time it does, more of the wall's damp proof course and more airbricks disappear beneath it.

Lowering the paving back to the correct level, reinstating clear airbricks, and making good the damp proof course at that point resolves a large share of the ground floor damp we see on these streets, often without any need to treat the wall itself.

We cover Edgware, Burnt Oak, the Mill Hill fringe, Queensbury, Canons Park and Edgwarebury, working out from our Harrow base, alongside London, West London, Middlesex, Brent, Watford, Slough, Buckinghamshire, High Wycombe, Surrey and the new towns.

Calls are taken Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm and Saturday 8am to 1pm, and surveys tied to a sale, remortgage or tenancy are prioritised where we can.