Our Services Include

We can offer you up to 30-year TUG insurance backed guarantees on all of our work using Triton products.

Aquarius Timber is a friendly and professional damp course and timber preservation company covering all types of damp work from minor repairs in the home lasting from a few days through to large projects in factories & commercial buildings up to CDM, behavioural safety and contract project management standards.

We have been working in this specialist building industry in the West Midlands for well over 10 years.
We have a wealth of experience and we only use safe, skilled, suitably, qualified, experienced and professional trades people so we can assure you receive the very best service.

Aquarius is a Triton approved contractor and we are proud to use their time served products for damp, timber and cellar work. Triton has been around for over 30 years and we access to their technical knowledge and the very latest products, www.Triton-Chemicals.com.

No job too large and no job too small and customer satisfaction is our first priority. For total peace of mind we are fully insured and our work is guaranteed, often for 30 years and with the option of a full independent 30 year insurance backed guarantee on our damp and timber work.

Our form and our APP

To contact us, you can use our form to explain any complicated problems. Our free APP can be found when you search for damp and basement surveyor on Google Play store. You can use our free APP to send us photos with a text explianation of any problems you have, in return we will give you a free, quick and professional photo based opinion. Our free APP also includes 1 touch dialing and many other features.

What is Rising Damp?

Damp is the name given to water that has come out of the ground under the property and now includes dirt and soluble ground salts which can damage plaster and timber based building materials. This damp can rise up out of the ground using capillary action through concrete, mortar and bricks and it is also aided by a form of static to climb up the walls for approximately 1 meter above the external ground level, leading to its name Rising Damp. This contaminates the walls up to 1 meter inside the house with salt damp or rising damp. This salt will burn through plaster or soft gypsum based materials, paints, bitumen, almost everything.

A damp course is usually set 2 to 3 bricks above the external ground level, which should be the internal ground level, so it will be difficult to see from the inside. On the outside of the house, a thicker band or mortar may be observed at the same level as the internal ground floor level. Unfortunately, this thick band of mortar is actually bridging the damp course for a start. We would prefer to see the damp course material and not porous mortar.

The function of the damp course is to stop rising damp from rising above the internal ground floor level. Plaster or timber based materials should not be used without special measures bellow the damp course.
We recommend that the plaster should not be within 2 inches of the ground floor, especially a concrete or solid floor. Any contact with the solid floor or below the damp course height is likely to result in rising damp.

If the walls have been contaminated by salt damp or rising damp, further contamination of the plaster can only be prevented, by coating the bare walls thickly enough with a 2 part render which includes a salt inhibitor. This will allow the walls to dry, but the salt will we caught by the render.

We only recommend a 2 part system using a Triton high pressure damp course injection and a Triton render mix to coat the contaminated walls, before a skim of re-plastering is applied. We leave a 3 inch gap and usually fit 5~7 inch skirting if requested.

This work normally only takes a few days depending on the amount of rising damp in your home. Removing the old plaster can be a bit dusty but most of the work is clean from that point on. We do use high pressure damp proofing chemicals and it is not recommended that you attend this part of the process.

Damp floors can be coated with damp proof paints before tiling or expensive flooring is laid, but we would recommend a thin tanking flooring which allows any gathered moisture to be dealt with by air flow from an air brick or a drainage system using weep holes.

Wet Rot & Woodworm

Damp ingress into the timber based materials allows wet rot and woodworm infestations to attack the timbers, which is why a damp proof specialist is needed to stop the source of the damp. We will then only replace the affected timbers and treat the infestation, which usually fairly quick and cheap to achieve.

Dry Rot

Dry rot needs a constant water supply which may be a leak or access to a large patch of soil near or under the property. Dry rot is difficult and expensive to cure as it can spread over great distances very quickly. The ground does not even have to possess food or water which is why it is called dry rot, as it can spread over dry areas.

Condensation

Condensation is usually formed as a result of your lifestyle choices. We decide to produce too much water in our homes and we decide to have the entire house too hot. A property can cope with so much water which is suspended in the air as water vapour. Any excess water vapour turns back into water on cold surfaces, usually on external walls, usually in the corners of upstairs rooms or bedrooms. We have extensive information to allow you to reduce the moisture you create in the first instance. Then we would recommend using de-humidifiers and extractors, and the best treatment is a positive pressure unit, which actually pushes the wet air out and lets dry air in. Opening a window may just be letting wet and cold air in.

Basement Converion

Any bricks below the damp course should be considered damp. The only effective treatment for the areas below the damp course level is a tanking system which needs to be connected to an unblocked drainage system to work. If you are lucky enough to have a cellar, this is a ready-made extension and it can be converted very easily. A basement conversion is the easiest way to extend your house and add value by remove that dark and smelly room that may flood, out of the equation and add a useful and desirable room to your property.

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