Renovation Damp Observation Record Checklist

Record the room, the wall and roughly how high above the floor each mark sits, using something ordinary in the room as a reference rather than a stated measurement.

Height relative to the floor is one of the first things a qualified professional asks about, and it is the detail most easily lost from memory.

Note whether the affected wall faces outside air, is shared with a neighbouring property, or is internal with heated rooms on both sides.

Which side of the wall the outside is on narrows the possibilities considerably before anyone has looked at anything.

Say what lies directly above the affected area, such as a bathroom, a flat roof or a valley, and what lies directly below it.

Water travels downwards and sideways through a building, so the room above is often more relevant than the room you are standing in.

Mark the outline of each patch lightly in pencil, or draw it onto a printed photograph, so that any spread can be seen later rather than argued about.

Whether a patch is growing, static or shrinking changes the whole conversation, and nobody can tell from a single visit.

Record whether the mark sits near a corner, a chimney breast, a window reveal, a skirting or the junction between wall and ceiling.

Marks concentrated at junctions behave differently from marks in the middle of a wall, and the distinction is worth capturing.

Photograph each area in daylight from the same standing position each time, and note where you stood so the images can be compared honestly.

Photographs taken from wherever you happened to be standing cannot be compared, which wastes the record you have gone to the trouble of building.

Describe what the surface is doing in plain words, such as blistering, staining, powdery deposits, lifting paper or dark spotting, rather than reaching for a technical label.

A technical label written by an owner tends to stick, and everyone who reads it afterwards starts from an assumption instead of from evidence.

Resist naming the problem yourself; distinguishing between the possible causes of a damp mark is work for a suitably qualified professional.

Note whether the surface feels cold, cool, damp or actually wet to the back of the hand, and whether that changes between morning and evening.

A cold but dry surface and a genuinely wet surface point in different directions, and the difference is easy for an occupant to feel.

Record any smell, where in the room you notice it most, and whether it is stronger after the room has been shut up for a while.

Smell is often the first sign in a cupboard or corner that nobody looks at, and it is rarely written down anywhere.

Say what finish the affected area carries, such as modern paint, wallpaper, a hard render or an older soft plaster, and whether it was applied recently.

What the surface is finished in affects how a problem shows itself, so a professional will want to know before drawing conclusions.

Note whether furniture, stored boxes or a fitted unit stands against the affected wall, and how tightly it sits to the surface.

Air movement behind furniture is one of the ordinary variables in a room, and owners almost never mention it unprompted.

Record whether nearby metal fixings are rusting, and whether skirtings or other joinery feel soft when pressed gently with a thumb.

Corrosion and soft timber suggest how long something has been going on, which matters more than how bad it looks now.

Do not probe, cut or pull away timber to test how soft it is; leave any opening up to a suitably qualified professional.

Note which part of the year you first see the marks and whether they fade at another point, rather than describing them as simply constant.

A mark that comes and goes and a mark that never leaves are different problems, and the distinction is free for you to record.

Record whether the problem worsens after prolonged rain, after wind from a particular direction, or apparently regardless of the weather.

Whether a mark tracks the weather or tracks indoor conditions points a qualified professional in quite different directions.

Write down whether the heating being on or off appears to change what you see on the surface, and in which rooms.

Heating patterns change surface temperatures throughout a home, and the effect on the marks is an observation only an occupant can make.

Note whether the affected area behaves differently when the room is in regular use compared with when it is shut up and unheated.

Spare rooms, unused bedrooms and closed-off spaces frequently behave differently from the rest of the home.

Record how quickly marks reappear after redecoration, if the area has been painted over before, and what was used.

How fast something comes back through fresh paint is genuinely useful information and is usually only remembered vaguely.

Keep the record running across a full turn of the seasons rather than stopping as soon as the marks fade from view.

Records that stop when the problem becomes invisible are the reason so many damp conversations restart from nothing each year.

Record where washing is dried, and be honest about whether it is dried indoors on radiators or an airer at any point in the year.

Indoor drying is one of the largest moisture sources in an ordinary home and is almost never volunteered without being asked.

Note whether lids are used on pans, and whether the kitchen extract is switched on during cooking and left running afterwards.

Cooking puts a great deal of moisture into a home, and whether it is removed at source is a household habit rather than a technical matter.

Watch which surfaces in the bathroom stay wet longest after somebody has bathed, whether that is the mirror, the tiling, the window reveals or the ceiling above.

The surface that stays wet longest is usually the coldest one in the room, and simply naming it gives a professional somewhere specific to begin looking.

Record how the heating is really used, including rooms kept cold, heating switched on only briefly, and rooms closed off entirely, without judging any of it.

An honest description is far more useful than an idealised one, and a professional is not there to disapprove of how you heat your home.

Note whether any portable heater is used and what kind it is, since some types add moisture to the room they are heating.

Where a heater burns fuel in a room, the air it depends on is a safety matter for an appropriately qualified professional to settle before use continues.

Say whether the number of people living in the property has changed since the marks first appeared, and whether anyone is now at home while others are out.

Occupancy affects both how much moisture is produced and how much ventilation actually happens, and it changes over the life of a home.

Stand outside opposite each internal mark and photograph that part of the wall, noting anything unusual about the surface, the pointing or the render.

Matching an inside observation to the outside face of the same wall is simple, and it is the step most owners skip entirely.

Watch the gutters and downpipes during heavy rain from a safe position at ground level, and note any overflow, splashing or staining running down the wall.

Rainwater goods only reveal themselves when it is actually raining, which is rarely when anyone is visiting.

Do not climb to look at gutters, roofs or high level surfaces; leave anything above ground level to those properly equipped and qualified.

Note where soil, paving, decking or planting meets the wall, and whether anything has been built up against it over the years.

Changes to external ground level and hard surfaces happen gradually, are easily forgotten, and are frequently relevant to what is happening inside.

Record any external tap, waste pipe, gully or soakaway near the affected area, and whether water discharges away freely when in use.

Water arriving at the base of a wall from a fitting nobody thinks about is an ordinary and easily observed possibility.

Look for climbing plants, dense shrubs or trees close to the affected wall, and note roughly how long they have been established there.

Planting against a wall changes how it dries and how rainwater reaches it, and owners rarely connect the two.

Note whether any air brick or vent in that wall is blocked, painted over, buried by raised ground or built against.

Leave every vent exactly as you found it and photograph it instead; what an individual opening serves is for a qualified professional to establish.

List every water-using fitting on the other side of the affected wall, in the room above it and in the room below it.

The list is short, quick to make, and it is exactly what a qualified professional would otherwise have to work out from scratch.

Note the position of radiator valves near the affected area, and whether there is any staining, corrosion or dampness where pipes enter the floor or wall.

Slow seepage at a valve or pipe entry can go unnoticed for a long time because the evidence appears somewhere other than the leak.

Record whether the affected area is near a bath, shower tray or basin, and describe how the sealant and grout around it look and feel.

Water passing a failed seal shows up in the room below or the wall behind rather than in the bathroom itself.

Where there is a water meter, write down the reading last thing at night and again first thing, having used nothing in between, and keep both figures with the marks record.

Two readings either side of an unused period are dated evidence rather than an impression, and they sit usefully alongside the photographs of the marks.

Note any waste pipe that passes through the affected wall, and whether the surface immediately around it is discoloured or soft.

Penetrations through a wall are natural weak points and are worth listing whether or not they look suspicious.

Record whether anything nearby was recently replaced, moved or plumbed in, even where it seems entirely unrelated to the marks.

The connection between recent work and a new mark is often obvious to a professional and invisible to the person living there.

Gather any paperwork relating to previous damp work, including what was done, to which wall, by whom and what was said afterwards.

Earlier work is part of the building now, and a professional who does not know about it is working with one hand tied.

Note visible evidence of earlier remedial work, such as a hard render band, a replastered strip or drilled holes in the mortar, without judging any of it.

Whether earlier remedial work was appropriate, or is still doing anything at all, is for a suitably qualified professional to assess rather than you.

Ask what monitoring a qualified professional would want in place before any remedial work is specified, and across which part of the year.

Monitoring before intervention is often the difference between fixing a problem and covering it up, and it is worth raising early.

Write down what different people have told you, attributing each statement to whoever said it, especially where the opinions contradict one another.

Few subjects attract as many confident and contradictory opinions as damp, and an attributed record makes a disagreement visible instead of leaving it buried.

Ask what would have to be lifted or opened up to reach a firmer answer, and what that would mean for the room while it is happening.

Any investigation that goes beneath a surface belongs with a qualified professional, who should tell you first what might be disturbed by reaching it.

Keep the whole record together in one place, written in your own words, so a later adviser does not have to start the observation again from nothing.

Damp records are usually scattered across a phone, a drawer and someone's memory, which is why the same questions get asked repeatedly.