Damp Proofing Garstang

Garstang is twenty minutes up the A6 from us, and we cover PR3 including Catterall, Churchtown, Bilsborrow, Barnacre, Scorton and Bowgreave.

Garstang sits on the River Wyre, and the low ground either side of it stays wet. Properties on the flood plain — and there are plenty — deal with persistently damp subsoil, which is hard on any damp proof course and unforgiving of a failed one.

The other thing we see a lot of here is sub-floor problems. Older Garstang properties tend to have suspended timber ground floors with a void underneath, and that void needs air moving through it. Airbricks get painted over, blocked by a new patio, buried when the garden level is raised, or sealed up by someone trying to stop a draught. The void goes stagnant, the timber stays damp, and you get wet rot in the joists and floorboards — usually noticed as a soft or bouncy patch of floor near an outside wall.

That one is often cheaper to fix than people fear, provided it is caught before the joist ends have gone.

Around the Church Street conservation area there is also a good deal of rendered and stone property where the render has cracked and is holding water against the wall behind it.