Case study: Tanking a persistently damp room in Bolton.
A Bolton room with damp that kept coming back, stripped, tanked, membraned and re-boarded in three days. £1,500 fixed. Six months on: dry, warmer, and the underlying issue actually resolved.
Project at a glance Verified Wolsten build
- Property type
- Terraced · Bolton
- Job type
- Damp proofing + tanking
- Time on site
- 3 days
- Fixed price
- £1,500 all-in
- System
- Tanking slurry + membrane
- Walls
- Battened + re-boarded
- 6 months on
- Dry and warmer
- Built by
- Three founders on site
Why they called us.
Brendan had been fighting damp the way most people end up fighting it — redecorating over it, watching it come back, and stressing about what it was doing to the room and the house. Paint-over fixes weren't fixing anything.
The answer was to treat the wall, not the wallpaper: strip the affected walls back, apply a proper tanking system, add a damp-proof membrane, then batten and re-board so the finished wall is isolated from the masonry behind it.
Fixed quote at £1,500, three days on site — and the test of a damp job isn't handover day, it's six months later. Brendan's verdict is below.
What we did.
Three days, stripped walls to a dry room:
- Strip-out of the affected walls — coverings and boards off, back to masonry
- Wall preparation — surfaces cleaned back and made ready
- Tanking slurry applied to the prepared walls
- Damp-proof membrane fixed over the tanked surface
- Battens fixed — isolating the new wall from the masonry
- Re-boarded ready for skim and decoration
- Clean-down and walkthrough, with the moisture readings explained
Six months on, the room is dry and noticeably warmer — the underlying issue resolved, not repainted.
“I was stressing so much with the damp issues. It's been 6 months and the room is so much dryer and warmer — completely resolved the underlying issue.”Brendan · Bolton · Google review
The whole build, in four shots.
Real photos from the actual project — damp proofing in Bolton.
Walls stripped back to masonry — no more covering it up.
Tanking treatment applied across the prepared walls.
Damp-proof membrane fixed across the walls, sealed at every fixing.
Moisture-resistant boarding on — the finished wall isolated from the masonry.Every detail of the Bolton build.
The full set of photos taken throughout the project.
For the discerning homeowner.
What we actually built into this project.
Tanking plus membrane — belt and braces, deliberately
Tanking slurry blocks moisture at the masonry; the membrane over it provides a second, mechanical barrier with an air gap behind the battens. Either alone can work; together they're why this room is still dry six months on.
Battened boards — the wall never touches the problem
The finished plasterboard is fixed to battens, not the masonry — so even the residual moisture a wall naturally carries never reaches the decorated surface. It's also why the room feels warmer: that air gap works like insulation.
Fix the cause, then the cosmetics
Damp jobs fail when they start at the decorating end. Here the sequence was strip, treat, isolate, board — decoration is the last step, not the treatment. That's the difference between resolved and repainted.
Three founders. No subcontractors.
Liam, Ryan and Paul on every job.
Liam
Led the project from survey to handover, and covered every electrical requirement in-house — certified, no third-party spark.
Ryan
Time-served bricklayer. Ran the structural and preparation stages that decide how good the finish can be.
Paul
Every cut, fit and finish on the joinery side — done on site, made to fit this house rather than the average one.
Bolton · Greater Manchester
Bolton's older terraces — solid-walled, hard-weathered — are prime candidates for the kind of persistent damp that laughs at stain-block paint. Tanking done properly is the reliable fix on these houses, and it costs less than most people fear.
We're based in Westhoughton, ten minutes from most of Bolton.
Questions homeowners ask about projects like this.
How much does damp proofing and tanking cost in Bolton?
This room — strip-out, tanking slurry, membrane, battens and re-boarding — came in at £1,500 fixed. Single-room tanking jobs around Bolton typically land between £1,200 and £2,800 depending on wall area and how much making-good is needed.
How long does tanking a room take?
Three days here, including strip-out and re-boarding. Most single rooms are 2–4 days; drying and curing times are built into the sequence, not skipped.
Will tanking actually stop the damp coming back?
Done properly — treating the masonry and isolating the finished wall — yes. This room is dry six months on, which is the only timescale that means anything with damp. We'll always tell you honestly at the survey if your damp has a cause tanking won't fix (like a leaking gutter — that gets fixed first).
Why is the room warmer after tanking?
Two reasons: dry walls conduct less heat than wet ones, and the battened air gap behind the new boards acts as a layer of insulation. Warmer and dryer usually arrive together — exactly what Brendan found.
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