ImportantMasonry gives up moisture at roughly a month for every 25mm of thickness. Any schedule that has the room repainted a fortnight after injection is about to seal the moisture in.
Subfloor ventilation
On a timber house this can be the entire answer, and no damp course is involved at all.
What this includes
Additional vents, and clearing whatever is blocking the existing ones
Powered extraction on a humidistat where passive airflow is impossible
Getting water away from the perimeter
Grading the ground under the house so it drains
What it does not
A masonry wall with wet ground against it - ventilation will not stop that
Anything on a concrete slab, which has no subfloor
Condensation inside the rooms, which is a different ventilation problem
ImportantA Queenslander on stumps, clear of the ground, does not take rising damp in its timber walls. If someone has quoted you a damp course for one, ask them which wall they mean.
Ground levels and drainage
It removes a cause of the damp rather than treating the wall, so check it before a damp course is priced.
Illustration: soil above the weep holes and a downpipe emptying at the wall. Both put water against the brick above the damp course.
What this includes
Lowering garden beds and paving away from the wall
Cutting back a path or driveway that laps over the damp course
Correcting falls so water runs away from the building
Taking downpipes into a line instead of discharging at the base of a wall
What it does not
Structural retaining work, a different trade which may need approval
ImportantIf a garden bed or a driveway sits above the damp course, it is carrying water past a barrier that is working perfectly well. Moving dirt is cheap, permanent, and sometimes the whole job.
How these figures were set: the $450 plus GST assessment is the one fixed price, set on 8 September 2026 for every damp site in this network. The other ranges were entered when the site was built in September 2026. No Ipswich operator's written quotes have checked them yet, so treat them as a budget guide only.
What a damp job costs in Ipswich depends on far less than people expect. Wall thickness, access, and how much salt-affected render has to come off account for most of the variation. A single skin nineteenth century wall in the CBD is a different job from an interwar cavity wall in Eastern Heights, and the quote should say which one you have.
The item that surprises owners is not the injection. It is the making good. Removing contaminated render, waiting for a thick wall to dry, and re-rendering in a breathable system can be the larger half of the bill, and a quote that leaves it out is not cheaper — it is incomplete.
Where a built-in-under room is the cause, the price depends on what that room needs. Sometimes the answer is a barrier in the new blockwork; sometimes it is ventilation and drainage and no barrier at all. That is decided at the assessment, and it is the reason we will not quote a treatment over the phone.
The cheapest useful work on this list can be the groundwork. Lowering a garden bed, cutting back a path, or taking a downpipe into a line costs a fraction of an injected course and, where the ground outside is the cause, does more. Any assessment worth paying for looks outside before it recommends anything.
Two prices for the same Ipswich wall can differ by a factor of three and both be honest, because they are not describing the same job. One may be injection alone; the other may include stripping the render, waiting for a thick wall to dry and finishing in a breathable system. Our written quote says what happens to the render, so you can see which job you are paying for.
Where the house is a Queenslander with a room built in underneath, the quote should say which part of the building it is pricing. Treating the original timber walls is not a thing that can be done or needs doing. The work, if there is work, is in the ground floor enclosure, and a quote that does not distinguish between the two has not understood the house.
The number nobody quotes is the drying time, and it is the one that governs when you can repaint. Masonry gives up its moisture at roughly a month for every 25mm of thickness. On a solid nineteenth century wall that is most of a year, and any schedule that has the room finished a fortnight after injection is either not treating rising damp or is about to seal the moisture in.
Why two quotes on the same wall can differ by a factor of three
How much salt-affected render is included. The biggest single variable, and the easiest to leave out.
Wall construction. A 350mm solid wall is not an interwar cavity wall.
Whether drainage and ground level correction are in scope, or assumed to be somebody else's job.
Access, and whether the wall can be treated from one side or two.
If two quotes are far apart, they are usually not quoting the same work. Ask both what happens to the render.
Prices are indicative ranges only. Every fixed price quote follows an on-site assessment.
Areas we cover
We work across the Ipswich local government area and the western corridor.
Rising Damp Ipswich