Rising damp is actually plausible here, which is unusual
Across most of Cape Town, what gets called rising damp is penetrating damp or condensation. Bellville is one of the places where the real thing turns up often enough to take seriously: the stock is old enough to have an original damp-proof course, the course is old enough to have failed, and parts of Bellville South and Stikland sit low toward the Kuils River with ground water closer to the surface than the rest of the corridor.
The test is the same everywhere. Rising damp stops at a fairly level tide mark about 0.9–1.2m up the wall and leaves a white salt bloom at the line. Penetrating damp is patchy, at any height, and gets worse during driven rain. If your damp is at ceiling level it is a roof detail, whatever anyone tells you. Damp proofing in Cape Town sets out the DPC injection and salt-retardant replastering method we use when it really is rising damp.
What we get called out to in Bellville
- Failed or absent damp-proof course. Bitumen and slate courses in pre-1980 stock, plus later additions and enclosed stoeps built straight onto the existing slab with no course at all — the added-on room is very often the damp one.
- Raised ground and paving levels. Forty years of paving, screed and garden build-up has bridged the damp course on a lot of these houses. The wall is then damp no matter how sound the original course is.
- Face brick and eroded mortar joints. Face brick sheds water; its mortar joints eventually do not. Driven rain passes straight through a weathered joint and shows on the internal face of the same wall.
- Flat and low-pitch concrete roofs. The older Bellville flat roof is usually on its second or third membrane, with the upstand terminated too low against a parapet. Same signature as the rest of the corridor.
- Salt bloom and blown plaster. Where damp has been present for years the plaster carries hygroscopic salts, and painting over it fails within a season. The plaster has to be hacked off to 1m and replaced with a salt-inhibiting render — see damp proofing in Cape Town.
- Commercial and mixed stock around the CBD. Bellville has a lot of flat-roofed light-industrial and office property with internal drainage that silts up and backs up over the threshold.
What we do here
- Damp proofing in Cape Town — chemical DPC injection and salt-retardant replastering where the diagnosis is genuinely rising damp.
- Re-pointing and breathable water-repellent treatment on face brick — never a film-forming coating, which traps moisture and spalls the brick face.
- Two-layer torch-on waterproofing and roof waterproofing in Cape Town on the flat and low-pitch concrete roofs.
- Lowering or draining paving and ground levels that have bridged the damp course, usually with french drains and drainage.
- Wall crack repair and façade sealing on plastered elevations and boundary walls.
- Basement and cellar waterproofing for the below-ground rooms that turn up in the older Bellville and Oakdale stock.
Areas we cover around Bellville
Bellville central, Oakdale, Boston, Loevenstein, Welgemoed, Stikland, Bellville South, Glenhaven, Labiance, Chrismar, Bo-Oakdale, Belrail, Sanlamhof, Vredelust and Ridgeworth.
Bellville is one of two suburbs in the northern corridor with its own page — the other is waterproofing in Durbanville, where the stock is newer and the problem is a roof problem rather than a damp problem. The wider corridor is covered under waterproofing in the Northern Suburbs.
What a damp or waterproofing quote should contain is set out under waterproofing contractors in Cape Town.
Related services
- waterproofing in the Northern Suburbs
- waterproofing in Durbanville
- waterproofing prices
- choosing a waterproofing contractor
- a free inspection
- contact us
Common questions
Do you do damp proofing in Bellville?
Yes, and Bellville is one of the suburbs where genuine rising damp actually turns up — the stock is old enough to have a failed damp-proof course and parts of it sit low. We inspect and give you the cause in writing before quoting, because DPC injection applied to penetrating damp is money spent on the wrong problem.
How much does damp proofing cost in Bellville?
Chemical DPC injection runs about R450–R850 per linear metre of wall, before replastering. Salt-retardant replastering is quoted separately because it depends on how far up the wall the salts have travelled. A typical single affected wall lands between R6,000 and R18,000.
My house is face brick, so why is the inside wall wet?
Face brick is not a waterproof skin. It relies on the mortar joints, and after forty years of Cape weather those joints erode and let driven rain through to the cavity or the inner leaf. Re-pointing plus a breathable silane or siloxane cream is the correct fix. Sealing face brick with a film-forming paint traps the moisture and blows the brick face off.
Can you just paint over the damp patch?
No, and anyone who offers to should be the last person you call. Damp plaster carries salts that pull moisture out of the air, so paint over it fails within a season and usually takes the plaster with it. The wall has to dry and, where salts are present, be replastered with a salt-retardant mix.