Just by using your senses you can spot the typical signs of rising damp in your property.

• Tide marks on the walls up to 1 metre caused by evaporation and salts from the ground.


• Damp patches and staining about 1 metre up a wall from the ground


• Wall paper coming off or peeling from the wall


• Decayed skirting boards


• Running your hands around the suspected rising damp area. If you have wallpaper on your walls, you may hear a ‘crunching’ sound of the salts that have been drawn from the ground


• If possible, look at the exposed surface of the brick or stone work. Check to see if there are salts forming, that the brick is actually wet (not just the wallpaper or paint)

Note: It is also important to note that rising damp only occurs on ground floor levels as it is moisture from the soil that is being drawn up the walls and thus causing the rising damp problem. If it is the case that your damp problem is on the first floor or above, it may be that you have a condensation problem or a penetrating damp issue. View our damp proofing web page to help you identify and solve your damp problem or contact your local Wise Property Care branch for help in identifying your property problem.

The one thing to remember when trying to identify rising damp is that there are many forms of damp that can affect a property and different forms of damp proofing to help treat the particular damp problem. Certainly, if you do identify rising damp, it is advised to consider rising damp treatment as early as possible. As with most damp problems, the longer you leave rising damp, the more expensive it can become.