Damp Proofing Fleetwood

Fleetwood is on our doorstep — ten minutes from the yard — and we cover FY7 along with Thornton, Cleveleys, Rossall, Preesall, Knott End and Stalmine.

Coastal property takes more punishment than inland property, and Fleetwood takes more than most. It is exposed on three sides, and the prevailing westerlies drive rain horizontally off Morecambe Bay onto the seaward gables. Rain that would run down a wall inland gets pushed into it here.

Salt in the air makes it worse. Wind-blown salt gets into brickwork and render, and salt-laden masonry stays damp because the salts hold water — the same hygroscopic effect we see in rising damp, but arriving from the outside instead of the ground.

The pattern we see over and over in Fleetwood is penetrating damp on one elevation only, the one facing the weather, with sound walls everywhere else. Rendered elevations are particularly prone: once the render cracks or blows, water gets in behind it and cannot get back out, so the render traps the damp rather than shedding it.

A lot of the Victorian terraces here have cellars too, and a damp cellar in a coastal property is nearly always a membrane job rather than an injection one.