Hi,
the insurance company told me today, that the damp and beginnings of mould, starting (rising) in a corner in the kitchen, going up to the bedroom above, are due to needing new damp proof cause.
 
I have a couple of questions and would appreciate your advice and experience:
 
1. the insurance expert only looked at the problem - should he have taken readings /samples of the wall to determine the cause? if so what should he have done. (please see background of the story)
 
2. if it is the damp proof cause, what would be a solution to get rid of the problem, and ideally a 'green' solution, i.e. not using nasty chemicals.
 
 
Info about property:
1950s semi detached house, brickwork, wall affected is the outside walls, facing south and west. There are no beds, cabinets etc in the affected area of kitchen and bedroom. Underneath the kitchen (and entire house) is about 1meter of 'empty' space, i.e. the walls are about 1 meter deep, air-bricks, ground-floor joists with wooden floor. The house is on the outside surrounded with a 80cm wide concreted foot-path, which runs up to the wall of the house, though there is about a 5mm gap between path and wall (loved by weeds). The houses brick walls are pebble dashed.
 
Important background:
In 2008 I had problems with the outside rainpipe which is in the south west corner, where the damage is, as the soak away overflowed, whenever it rained. That was repaired, insurance removing tree-roots to the west. There was at the time a slight rising damp in the kitchen about 1ft heigh, which was not treated.
In April 2009 the problem of the overflow reoccurred, and this time the insurance cut tree roots away going east from the soak away. They noted that the bricks next to the soak away were damage and concreted that over. Since then no further problems
The previous owners installed in the kitchen a polystyrene cladding, which was plastered over. Taking some of the polystyrene off, I discovered that the damp/mould went all the way up to the ceiling. It then as said started in the bedroom above (newly plastered in March 2008, no polystyrene.
 
2.a) For damp proof cause (if that's indeed the issue) I read on the internet about some electro-osmos solution - but I wonder about electro-smog
 
Any advice, suggestions welcome, thank you,
 
Nicola