Free Damp Proofing: What Is Available and Who Pays

Search for "free damp proofing grants" and you will find plenty of pages implying there is a pot of government money waiting for anyone with a damp wall. There isn't, or at least not in that form. Help does exist, but it is patchy, usually means tested or tied to a specific problem like a cold home, and often comes with conditions attached. Worth knowing what is actually out there before you spend anything.

The other thing worth knowing is that a lot of damp does not need "damp proofing" at all, in the sense of injected chemicals and replastering. Getting that wrong is expensive, and a grant that pays for the wrong work has not really helped you.

Work out what kind of damp you have first

Damp in UK homes usually falls into three broad types, with different causes and different fixes.

• Condensation. By far the most common. Moist air from cooking, washing and breathing meets a cold surface and settles there. Typical signs are black mould in corners, behind furniture, around window reveals and in unheated bedrooms. The fix is ventilation, heating and insulation, not a chemical damp proof course.
• Penetrating damp. Water getting in from outside through a defect: a blocked or leaking gutter, cracked render, a slipped tile, failed pointing, a blocked air brick, or a raised path bridging the damp proof course. The patch is often localised and gets worse after rain.
• Rising damp. Groundwater drawn up through the wall where there is no damp proof course or the existing one has failed. Genuinely less common than the industry suggests, and normally limited to the bottom metre or so of ground floor walls.

If a gutter has been overflowing down the same stretch of wall for two winters, no injected cream will solve it. Clearing the gutter will. A fair number of expensive damp jobs are really deferred maintenance.

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Where public money actually comes in

There is no national damp proofing grant. What there is instead:

Council discretionary housing assistance. Councils in England and Wales have powers to offer help with repairs and improvements to private homes, and many run a scheme under a local name such as a home repair assistance grant or healthy homes fund. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own arrangements. These are discretionary, so what is on offer varies a lot from one council to the next, and schemes get changed, paused or closed when budgets run out for the year. They commonly favour older or disabled residents, households with young children, people on low incomes, or those whose home has been assessed as a hazard to health. Damp and mould is one of the recognised hazards councils assess under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, so it does get taken seriously. Ring your council's private sector housing or environmental health team and ask what they currently run.

Energy efficiency schemes. Where the damp is really a cold home problem, this is often the most realistic route. Insulation and heating measures under the Energy Company Obligation, and council led schemes funded through the Warm Homes programmes, can reduce condensation by warming the fabric of the building. Eligibility usually depends on income, benefits, the property's energy rating, or a referral from a GP or the council, and the rules change from time to time. Check GOV.UK and your council's website for what is running now. Be aware that funded insulation work will normally only go ahead if the property is dry and ventilated to start with, so damp can be a reason a scheme turns you down rather than a reason it helps.

Charitable grants. Some charities give one off grants for essential home repairs to people in hardship, including service charities, occupational benevolent funds and local trusts. Turn2us has a grant search, though it will not cover everything, so it is worth asking any organisation connected to your trade, employer or service background directly. These grants tend to be small and specific rather than a way to fund a full job.

If you rent, none of this is your bill. Repairs to the structure and exterior sit with the landlord, and under the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 the property has to be fit to live in, which includes being free of serious damp and mould. Report it in writing and keep a copy. If nothing happens, contact environmental health at the council. Citizens Advice can talk you through the next steps if the landlord digs in.

Your situation may be slightly different. ask a question below ↓ and our editorial team will reply with our advice.

Grant, loan, or something in between

Read the paperwork, because councils use the word "assistance" to cover very different things. Some help is a straight grant with nothing to repay. Some is an interest free or low interest loan. Some is a grant with a charge registered against your property, repaid when you sell or transfer the home. That last one can still be a sensible deal, but it is not free, and it will affect what you walk away with. Ask directly: is there anything to repay, and is anything registered against the title?

If no help is available, or the money on offer only covers part of the work, you are back to funding it yourself. Damp tends to get worse and more expensive the longer it sits, so it is worth setting something aside for it rather than waiting to see whether a scheme opens up.

Be careful with the free survey

Damp proofing firms advertise free surveys. The survey is free because it is a sales visit. The surveyor may well be qualified and experienced, but they work for a company that sells injected damp proof courses and waterproof render, and that is frequently what comes back in the report.

An independent damp surveyor charges a fee, has no products to sell and no installation work to win. They should measure moisture properly, look at the outside of the building as well as the inside, and tell you if the answer is a new gutter bracket. Look for a chartered surveyor with a building pathology background, or an independent member of the Property Care Association.

Before you commission anything, go outside on a wet day and watch what the rainwater does. Then check whether the ground level has crept up above the damp proof course. Both checks cost nothing, and they settle a fair share of cases.

The Next Step

Now that you have read through the advice above, you might want to put it into practice. Our Grant Eligibility Finder lets you tell us what you need funding for and we will match you with the types of UK grant most likely to accept your application. Try it now →