We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum... Read More »
We're aware that some users are experiencing technical issues which the team are working to resolve. See the Community Noticeboard for more info. Thank you for your patience.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
J.A.S.'s fixing the damp & swimming pool in the house thread....
Options
Comments
-
OK, I'm still here.
Picking any trader from a list, be it internet, phone book or whatever should be your last resort. Most of us have friends, work colleagues or simply chaps down the pub. IMHO any personal reco is worth 10 stabs with a needle.
Lastly, you have exhausted every bit of sensible advice that you can from this thread, most have given up, give up yourself before the lunatic suggestions appear.I like the thanks button, but ,please, an I agree button.
Will the grammar and spelling police respect I do make grammatical errors, and have carp spelling, no need to remind me.;)
Always expect the unexpected:eek:and then you won't be dissapointed0 -
cyclonebri1 wrote: »OK, I'm still here.
Picking any trader from a list, be it internet, phone book or whatever should be your last resort. Most of us have friends, work colleagues or simply chaps down the pub. IMHO any personal reco is worth 10 stabs with a needle.
Lastly, you have exhausted every bit of sensible advice that you can from this thread, most have given up, give up yourself before the lunatic suggestions appear.
Also, i'm all open to help. Totally grateful for it. But someone saying "go tell them to work on their day off & come see you over the Xmas period even though they're shut" is not helpful at all.
We will get someone out. Don't you worry about that. I think the way things are, we may just go the re-plastering route & maybe install a new sump pump, even though it will be 'taking the fines'. It all depends on quotes, but if they go how i suspect then we'll need to go for a short term fix to save for a long term solution. If they surprise me then maybe we can go down the solution route.
Anyway, i'll let the thread know how we get on when it happens. People can read it if they wish, get annoyed by it if they wish or maybe they're interested in the progress.0 -
Update:
Went over the problem with a builder today actually. I'm not totally convinced that he's up for/to the job though. See what you guys reckon to this chap...
* He says as there's a supposed river/stream/beck/culvert/WATER running through the house, it would be better to replace the wooden joists with concrete beams & blocks. (now this i don't dispute as it does away with rotting wood). However he said that this would also be preferred over a solid floor, reason being - if the path of the river/stream/beck etc is through our house then you don't want to disturb that as it could cause all manner of problems as it'll have to go somewhere else.
* He seemed more interested in telling us we should pursue a claim for some sort of mis-selling compensation as we weren't informed of 1) the sump pump 2) the water below 3) a river running through the house
* He was of the mind that the sub floor actually DOESN'T want drying out - because when that happens, as it's been so wet & sloppy for so long, the floor will crack & then lead to subsidence. So if anything, we want to be leaving the water there.
* I mentioned treatment of the walls & he umm'd & ahhh'd & so i mentioned the studded plastic sheeting & plasterboard we were advised to do. He almost had a heart attack, saying that this will cost the earth basically & we shouldn't go down that road.
* So i said the only other option then really is to just hack off & replaster, which will need doing every X-years as you're not solving a problem. Yeah you don't want to be doing that do you he said. Errrr, no(!)
So that was about it really. No actual solution to our problem other than he thinks we should go beam & block for the floor & that going total fully solid floor would be a bad idea as you don't want to interrupt the flow of the river & that's about it.
Anyway, just posting that here for those who are saying that i'm doing nothing & not getting in touch with anyone.0 -
JustAnotherSaver wrote: »Look, i don't want to come across offensive here, but i was responding to a post from maas which there is totally nothing wrong with at all.
My advice was just that if its a big job (like yours obviously looks like) then get a "proper firm", and in that case a good place to start searching would be the yell. And then from the list of potentials you get from there, check out their websites.
You can gauge if its a plastic website put together in 5 minutes and then never updated along with a hotmail email address, or if its a firm that actually regularly update with photo's of past work (including dates) and lots of information about who they are and qualifications etc and preferably a shop front and seem like they actually give a chit about it.
I've gone with a firm who quoted me 20% more than the first guy (who was stupidly cheap) but I was just so more comfortable with what he was saying and the detail of the work his company would carry out, than the cheaper quote which made me feel like I was getting half a job done. I dont want cheap, I want it done properly.
I think for smaller jobs, new doors, garden fence, fitting laminate flooring, new radiator etc then ratedpeople and all those handyman websites are probably a good bet, but not for anything costing more than a couple of grand, at least not for me.
I can almost see you starting a new thread in 6 months time, "Would you sue your builder!".0 -
Perhaps, but i'll only go with someone i'm comfortable with.
This chap didn't fill me with confidence so i wont be going with him. Some things were wishy-washy.
The guy we select may well say the same (beam & block), but he'll be the one filling us with confidence, not umming & ahhing.
I only posted up the results really as 1) reference for myself because i know what my memory is like & 2) for those who are saying - you're doing nothing, why don't you get in touch with folk.
Oh the guy also started talking about "tanking" too, which didn't fill me with confidence. With my understanding of "tanking" that is not a solution here in this case. What are we waterproofing against? The water getting through the walls that it's not actually getting through now? Tanking above the DPC line so it doesn't shoot up the wall & then eventually this ceases to be effective & needs doing again, but now we have concrete beams & blocks in place which are more difficult to get under than floorboards? No thanks.
The Mrs found these guys: http://www.basementsystems.co.uk/
Who i expect to be more expensive than your independent, but they SEEM built for the job & at the very least do free quotes
I know they're about basements & ours isn't actually a basement, but there's this section of their website: http://www.basementsystems.co.uk/sub-floor-void-waterproofing.html About sub floor voids - which is us. They also list sump pumps, which again is us at the moment.
So i think we'll at the very least be getting them to assess & quote.0 -
Use a member of one of the building associations like the Federation of Master Builders.
http://www.fmb.org.uk/Do you want your money back, and a bit more, search for 'money claim online' - They don't like it up 'em Captain Mainwaring0 -
Use a member of one of the building associations like the Federation of Master Builders.
http://www.fmb.org.uk/cyclonebri1 wrote: »Picking any trader from a list, be it internet, phone book or whatever should be your last resort. Most of us have friends, work colleagues or simply chaps down the pub. IMHO any personal reco is worth 10 stabs with a needle.
There was 1 on there who i know OF as being a customer at my place. He doesn't come in all that often as his stuff generally goes direct & i don't know what level of building work he does. I know he's on Xmas shut down though & doesn't start up again until the 9th so i was going to have a doosy do at getting in touch with him then to see if this is one area he'd touch/be interested in.0 -
If there really is a water course running under the house, then I agree you don't want to block it and the concrete joist man is making a good point.
If the walls are so badly "corroded" by two or three generations of rising damp, that a silicon injection is not enough , using modern diamond cutting techniques, it should be possible to insert a real damp course, while the floors are up.and the joists being replaced.
How much is the gap between the bottom of the joists and the concrete (?) floor of your "basement" ?
What did you find on the old maps for the "field" that used to be the site of your house?
if you find a black line with this written alongside it
> Drain you know that old boys toiled with wooden shovels to try to clear a water-logging problem.0 -
I agree the concrete joist man is making a good point about not blocking the water course, as he is about not being told about the sump pump.
Do you ever find out if there is a exit in the wall for the water?Do you want your money back, and a bit more, search for 'money claim online' - They don't like it up 'em Captain Mainwaring0 -
I'll measure up & tell you tomorrow exactly what the void depth is. If i stand there then i think it's only my shoulders that exit out of the floorboards & i'm just shy of 6ft, but i'll measure proper tomorrow. I've meant to do it for a while for my own curiosity & i keep forgetting.
The damp man warned against a sand & cement based plaster (on breathability reasons), but i really wonder why. The lower half of the wall has been done sand&cement based & it's showing no signs of damp as far as the cracking/going soft/salting goes & it also doesn't show on the damp reader.
Based on this, i'm wondering why on earth just replastering the ENTIRE room top to bottom with a sand & cement based plaster is a bad thing. Unless water droplets will form on the face of the wall. This is what is happening with our neighbour (water on the face) but i don't know what their plastering is made of.
Will let you know about the maps when i find where the Mrs has put them.I agree the concrete joist man is making a good point about not blocking the water course,
Problem is still - we don't know where the water is originating from. Is it a river? Is it not? Is it a burst drain? Is it not? Is it magic? Is it not? Who knows for sure.as he is about not being told about the sump pump.Do you ever find out if there is a exit in the wall for the water?
Problem is, there is apparently no entrance either. I drained the entire thing & then crawled around. I headed towards the water seems to flow FROM but there is nothing -
no gap in the wall
no hole
no piping
no nothing, nothing obvious to say that water can get in through this point. It just 'appears'.
Someone at work told me your sump pump shouldn't exit to a main drain either. Personally i think this & he is balls because i'm sure i've read that that is ok.0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

Categories
- All Categories
- 351K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.1K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 453.6K Spending & Discounts
- 244K Work, Benefits & Business
- 598.9K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 176.9K Life & Family
- 257.3K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.6K Read-Only Boards