floor level below pavement

Wig

A house I am thinking of buying is stone built solid walls, terraced house type of thing.

Anyway, I noticed after the viewing that the floor level inside was about 18 inches below the pavement level, and the pavement comes right up to join the property. To make things worse there is a downpipe spewing out water here.

I have no doubt the water will run in to make the wall damp.

What should have been done? tanking the internal walls to a height of 2 metres? What exactly does "tanking" involve?

Anyway, I'd be surprised if this was done already, and I did not notice this fault until after the viewing, so I was not able to look for any evidence inside. Plus the house has been painted from top to bottom, and re-carpeted throughout, so many faults have been masked by this recent redecoration.

As a quick measure what could I do to help keep the wall free from damp? What do you think of my ideas...

Remove any *internal* render exposing the stone work for the bottom 18 inches, up to the window-sill level. Window-sill is about 6 inches above pavement on the outside.

Put an extra radiator (or 2) along this wall, and keep it on in wet weather

Maybe inject silicon damp course (but IMO this doesn't work very well on old black lime mortar walls).

How about suing the council? They have a duty to keep surface water away from your property (by sloping the pavements away etc)...could I ask (demand) them to dig out a breathing gap between the property and the pavement - allowing the air to circulate (narrowing the pavement). The pavement on this side is not very well sloped away from the property.

Mecoconuts

If your really intertested in the property then get a FULL survey done. This should hopefully reveal any potential problems with it.

Nobleck

Tanking is a process where the wall is covered by a special membrane and then rendered over. Once a wall is tanked it cannot be drilled,and if something has to be fixed to the tanked wall special fixings have to be used in order to keep the membrane seal intact.
A surveyor will observe a potential problem and may suggest the best remedy for it.

HugoSP

There are several ways of tanking. Using membrane is just one.

Without seeing the actual situation it is difficult to decide on the best couse of action. I have used both the membrane and the cementous tanking (Thoraseal) approach. Each have their advantages.