Building/damp or flood specialist company

[jmad]

I thought I would call on the BKCC wisdom to see if anybody knew of a localish builder. I need some advice on damp and flood protection.

We flooded a few years ago but we thought that the water came in through doors, low Windows and other openings. We have spent the last few years making changes to the house to reduce and protect these and it has worked.

This weekend we flooded again, whilst the defences that we have installed stopped any water getting in we still had a small amount of water come in from an internal wall. This is the old external cottage wall that is now in the middle of the house.

I can inject and waterproof the wall but that is either going to move the water elsewhere or increase the pressure within the wall.

I just wondered if anybody new of anyone with this sort of experience.

[CC Cyclone]

Sorry to hear this.
Do you know what your ground floor construction is? Suspended timbers or concrete slab or mud and slabs etc?

In my work I find one of the the biggest contributors to flooding tends not to be water entering through the fabric, but ground water rising through the floor structure.

[jmad]

Hi, Solid concrete floors which are tanked, the main points of entry were one gable end is the old cottage wall (not sure of construction) and then we have a wall between the lounge and kitchen which I am assuming is the old external wall which is basically stone and dirt (not a good mix!) When we flooded last time I don't know if water came in through the walls as it flooded in through other openings. We have now blocked up the other openings which made it more obvious where the water was coming in.

Is this something that you do or have experience of. I am now thinking that I may be better accepting that an amount of water will get in through the structure and having low points with pumps, as I am concerned that waterproofing everything eith just moves the problem to the next week point or may cause structural problems.

Thanks

[benchmark51]

I would think that the wall in question, which was an external wall and is now an internal wall would likely be drawing water upward by capillary action. I was getting this in a Victorian end terrace house. I replaced the floor with a solid floor with plastic membrane under the concrete, the walls were pressure treated all around the ground floor and the whole lot tanked up to 4 feet high. Ground floor walls were waterproof rendered and re-plastered, leaving a good gap at the bottom. That cured it ok, but I wasn't in a flood risk area. However I would think pressure injecting your wall wouldn't cause a problem and I would give it a go.

[Vindicator]

Hi jmad, we did quite a bit of research on damp issues when we bought our house and learned a lot about the effects 'modernisation' can have on an old house. To give us all the creature comforts we want nowadays, we make changes that have an impact on the way a house has behaved for decades or even centuries. We concluded that concrete floors in old houses could be a major issue, as you have said, and can push problems out elsewhere as water finds the next easiest route, in a lot of cases, into the walls. Saying that, we then went and bought a stone cottage with a concrete floor!! Although we're thankfully not at risk of flooding, we can get standing water in parts of the garden as the water table rises, but we don't appear to have issues with damp, although the house is dry lined. We were also advised that injecting the walls in a stone house will only have a limited benefit/impact due to the random construction of the stone used and lack of 'mortar' to allow the damp-proof fluid to permeate. A lot of stone walls have no 'binding' in the centre and are simply rubble.
I renovated an Edwardian house last year which had severe damp and decided to have the walls dry lined and used a membrane (Newton Newlath) which allows the walls to breathe and excess moisture to run down behind it. (Out under the floor in our case (or possibly use a sump if excessive)). There's a growing body of thought that now seems to take the approach it's better to find a way to live and work with it than try to eradicate it!

[jmad]

Thanks for the replies. The problem with injecting the wall is that it is very "loose construction" and I think I will struggle to get a barrier with no gaps.  The more I look at it the more I think that nature will find a way of winning and as vindicator says "There's a growing body of thought that now seems to take the approach it's better to find a way to live and work with it than try to eradicate it!"

I think the best I can do is to try and control the water rather than stop it.

['The Gaffer']

We flooded a few years ago but we thought that the water came in through doors, low Windows and other openings. We have spent the last few years making changes to the house to reduce and protect these and it has worked.

This weekend we flooded again, whilst the defences that we have installed stopped any water getting in we still had a small amount of water come in from an internal wall. This is the old external cottage wall that is now in the middle of the house.

Must be a nightmare, hope you get it sorted one way or another

[sanzomat]

There's a growing body of thought that now seems to take the approach it's better to find a way to live and work with it than try to eradicate it!

+1 to that. There are some good drained cavity products around these days to give a waterproof (or breathable) drainage layer behind walls or under floor screeds. They look like mini plastic eggboxes. If the zone being drained is below the flood level they wouldn't help that much though as they'd fill up.

I did a couple of places in flood zones years ago when I was doing domestic work, one in Hereford, one in Tintern. Both refurbs of old stone buildings. For both we went for quarry tiled floors and rendered internal walls rather than plaster. Nothing water sensitive below the 1:100 (plus 20% for climate change these days) flood level. The Hereford one got tested out in the week before hand-over. Flooded to 2 ft deep with muddy river water. When the river went back down it was a relatively simple jet wash and dry out and everything was fine.

Good luck sorting yours. As Ian said, give a shout if you need any help.