One of the clauses in our mortgage agreement was that we had to have a modern day damp course installed.    Easy enough right?     Lets reduce the cost by digging out the old floor ourselves and then get a firm in to give us a quote.  I mean how hard can it be? 

So, like every self builder out there, we spent hours googling it and came up with a plan.  We'll remove the bottom 100 cm of plaster from all of the down stairs walls, dig out all floors until we hit the footings/foundations, get new damp course fitted and tank the bottom 100cm of each wall. 

Easy!   So first tools bought were a hammer and chisel.  We were good to go . . 

 

First up were the carpets and the tiled floor. . . . 

   

We knew there had been a history of damp and that the previous owner had had silicone injected into the bottom of the walls to treat it.  The carpets were dry, along with the tiles underneath, so it was a surprise to find quite a bit of damp under the tiles.  An evening with google determined that the silicone had prevented the house from breathing causing condensation to collect.  We breathed a sigh of relief and carried on . . .