The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:04 pm**

I'd be grateful if anyone can help with this. I can see several things that might work but don't have the experience to know which.

I have a stone built gable end terrace. The gable wall is north facing. Water appears in the cellars after rain. I am reasonably satisfied that leaky gutters, downpipes etc aren't the source. There is no damp in the building above ground level.

Much of the cellarage is below ground level and excavation around the outer walls to a depth of 300mm reveals wet soil and damp stonework. The 2m wide strip of garden has about 100mm depth of 20mm+gravel over membrane with heavy soil beneath. I suspect rainfall on the garden is finding its way down and through the walls and into the cellar.

I have considered the following:
A row of slabs to direct rainfall away from the base of the wall.
A linear drain adjacent to the wall
A land drain adjacent to the wall.

I'd welcome comments from anyone who actually knows about these things as I can't decide which, if any, of these measures is worth taking. I appreciate with the latter two options that the water will have to go somewhere but I can feed it round to the rear garden and put in a soakaway.

Thanks very much,

Simon

Posted: **Tue Sep 11, 2012 9:11 pm**

hi simona. Sounds like the shingle is directing the water to your house. A land drain would do the same, aattract water rather than disperse it. One row of flags wouldn't do a lot of good. You need to be looking at a tanking system. You might have to have a pumping system inside your basement also. Are there any obvious signs of entry for the water that you could seal?

Posted: **Tue Sep 11, 2012 10:12 pm**

Tank the basement. Proper solution permanant proper fix.
Water will pass via soil in to basement no matter what you do so you need to damp proof the basement, tanking is the way forward.

Sit down when getting quotes

Posted: **Tue Sep 11, 2012 10:13 pm**

Sean is right. None of your options will not result in a dry habitable room. Work outside with drainage etc may help but will never solve the problem

You need to consider tanking it properly.

Posted: **Tue Sep 11, 2012 10:13 pm**

damn you slow typing sausage fingers

Posted: **Tue Sep 11, 2012 11:47 pm**

Thanks everyone, I was evidently being unrealistic about what I could achieve with external measures.

Since posting my question I discovered that the front steps are built on a pile of soil and rubble that extends into a void under the threshold. The void is below ground level, is about two courses high and as wide as the front door and goes back to the inner leaf of the gable wall. Having removed the earth that was packed into it I can see daylight from inside the cellar. A good candidate for 'obvious signs of entry'?

I'll also look into tanking as recommended.

The Brew Cabin

Penetrating damp in basement - Drainage options