Hove's ground and its hidden stream
The northern parts of Hove stand on chalk beds, where rainwater soaks away quickly. Elsewhere the ground is more varied: there are extensive areas of clay and sandy soil, including Woolwich and Reading Formation clays and pockets of clay full of flint, and a large deposit of brickearth lies under Aldrington. Clay holds water against the base of a wall for much longer than chalk, so two houses a mile apart can have very different damp risks. The town has no rivers, but Westbourne Gardens takes its name from the West Bourne, a stream still visible in the 19th century that now runs underground at the western edge of the old parish.
Flint and solid walls in the old villages
Portslade Old Village keeps its flint cottages and long flint walls, and Hangleton Manor is a 16th-century flint building. Old solid walls like these were built to absorb some moisture and let it evaporate again. Brighton & Hove City Council's guidance on historic buildings makes the point directly: modern impermeable materials such as cement renders, tanking and gypsum plasters can stop that evaporation and hold water in a traditional wall, especially where ventilation has been reduced. So in an old cottage we look first at ground levels, failed pointing and impermeable coatings, and keep any treatment compatible with a wall that has to breathe.
Cellars and rooms below ground
Where a room really is below ground level, with soil against the outside of the wall, it cannot dry outwards and needs protecting from the inside. One option is a waterproof render or slurry coat bonded straight onto the masonry; the other is a dimpled drainage membrane fixed to the wall, which lets any water that gets through run down behind it to a drain point. Both leave a surface that takes plaster or plasterboard, so the space becomes a usable room. In a Victorian brick house above ground, the usual problem is different: a damp proof course that has broken down, or been bypassed by a path or flower bed built up against the wall. There, an injected damp course and fresh plaster above it is the normal remedy, because the old salt-laden plaster would keep drawing moisture from the air.
Condensation in converted flats
When a large Hove villa is divided into flats, kitchens and bathrooms often end up in small rooms that were never designed for them, sometimes with little ventilation. Cooking, showers and drying washing indoors put moisture into the air, and it settles as black mould on the coldest surfaces, typically window reveals, corners and the ceiling against an outside wall. Our work there combines cleaning off the mould, better extraction and airflow, and, where one cold wall keeps growing mould, an insulated lining that lifts its surface temperature.
Rain on the seafront
Homes facing the storm beach along Kingsway take driving rain and spray straight off the Channel. Cracked render, failed parapet and cill details, and blocked gutters let water in sideways, and the damp patches then grow after every wet spell. The fix starts outside, as our page on rendering in Hove explains, before the inside is repaired. Where salt-damaged plaster has to come off, the wall is rebuilt with a suitable backing; see float and set in Hove.
We take on damp work anywhere in Hove and Portslade. Each treatment is explained on our damp proofing and mould prevention page, and you can reach us on 07824 165672 for free advice with no obligation.
