Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 11:24 pm
Hello,
I apologise in advance for my clueless-ness with some of my questions. I am a student nurse rather than being in the trade but would really really appreciate any advice .
Just wondered if anyone could offer some advice on this one. We have an end terraced 1930's property. Our next door neighbour noticed a foul smell coming from under the floor boards in their understairs cupboard back in feb. All the properties have a sub floor approx 3.5ft deep extending under the front room. They pulled up some boards and discovered what appeared to be foul water up to board level. United Utilities came out and advised said would do further investigations but it took several months before this happened. We were unaware of the problem till we noticed a smell and mentioned it to our neighbour, the previous owner of our house had fitted a trap door to access the subfloor and when we took a look we discovered foul smelling water approx 1.5ft deep. United Utilities returned and rodded and checked the sewers with cameras. They also attempted to pump the affected properties of those who were in ( at least 6 affected that we know of) . In our case they started to pump and stopped after five minutes as the water started to fill back up at speed. The foreman announced it must be groundwater and nothing to do with them and they departed.
We are still fairly convinced that it is foul water plus to me ( and forgive my ignorance on this) it didn't seem logical that ground water would re-fill at rapid speed . A few weeks after this a United Utilites crew turned up and dug up the road outside our house whilst we were out and we returned to see signs up saying "emergency sewer works " ....interesting and a bit co-incidental since its supposed to be groundwater !
Anyway..where we are at now is the smell has decreased but water is still present..there is a loose membrane laid over parts of the sub-floor put there by the previous owner so our plan was to get this out asap as it will obviously prevent anything draining and then try and pump it out ourselves if we have no further joy with the utilities company. We were thinking of getting a sample tested to see if we could find out whether it was mains, sewer or ground water but we aren't sure who would do this..any ideas ?
We are pretty concerned as we have signs of rising damp in the hallway above the sub-floor, peeling paint and some plaster cracking and as a student nurse money for repairs and maintenance is always an issue.
Any opinions or advice on this would be really appreciated
I apologise in advance for my clueless-ness with some of my questions. I am a student nurse rather than being in the trade but would really really appreciate any advice .
Just wondered if anyone could offer some advice on this one. We have an end terraced 1930's property. Our next door neighbour noticed a foul smell coming from under the floor boards in their understairs cupboard back in feb. All the properties have a sub floor approx 3.5ft deep extending under the front room. They pulled up some boards and discovered what appeared to be foul water up to board level. United Utilities came out and advised said would do further investigations but it took several months before this happened. We were unaware of the problem till we noticed a smell and mentioned it to our neighbour, the previous owner of our house had fitted a trap door to access the subfloor and when we took a look we discovered foul smelling water approx 1.5ft deep. United Utilities returned and rodded and checked the sewers with cameras. They also attempted to pump the affected properties of those who were in ( at least 6 affected that we know of) . In our case they started to pump and stopped after five minutes as the water started to fill back up at speed. The foreman announced it must be groundwater and nothing to do with them and they departed.
We are still fairly convinced that it is foul water plus to me ( and forgive my ignorance on this) it didn't seem logical that ground water would re-fill at rapid speed . A few weeks after this a United Utilites crew turned up and dug up the road outside our house whilst we were out and we returned to see signs up saying "emergency sewer works " ....interesting and a bit co-incidental since its supposed to be groundwater !
Anyway..where we are at now is the smell has decreased but water is still present..there is a loose membrane laid over parts of the sub-floor put there by the previous owner so our plan was to get this out asap as it will obviously prevent anything draining and then try and pump it out ourselves if we have no further joy with the utilities company. We were thinking of getting a sample tested to see if we could find out whether it was mains, sewer or ground water but we aren't sure who would do this..any ideas ?
We are pretty concerned as we have signs of rising damp in the hallway above the sub-floor, peeling paint and some plaster cracking and as a student nurse money for repairs and maintenance is always an issue.
Any opinions or advice on this would be really appreciated
