Damp cellar in early 1900s Victorian house

Peggy0628

Hi everyone,
we're renting an old Victorian mid-terrace build around 1900 - 1905. This is going to be our first winter here.
It's got a cellar that is ok during summer but very damp from October onward.

The walls are brick, the floor is concrete and the ceiling is some sort of a plasterboard and pieces of food covering the holes where someone decided to run water pipes and power cables (the wood is damp and covered in white mould). There is a space between the ceiling and the floor of the room above (no insulation).
The cellar has 2 rooms, each room has a vent (from the pavement).

At the moment it's so damp that cardboard boxes get wet, covered in mould and fall apart if you try to lift them after a week. Metal items are starting to go rusty.
We try to keep stuff away from walls and off the floor as much as possible.

Unfortunately we have nowhere else to store stuff (gardening tools, lawn mover, bicycles, Christmas decos etc) as there is no garage/shed/outbuilding and the loft hatch has been boarded up. We are banned from storing anything belonging to the LL in the cellar by the tenancy agreement.
Any idea how to dry it out? There is no power down there so need a non-electrical solution.

I was thinking some of those moisture trapping granules in a plastic container-type things from a poundshop but not sure if they're be any good considering the amount of moisture. The cellar is damp all the time at this time of the year but every time it rains it gets a lot worse (the water seems to be coming in through the floor) and takes days to get back to normal (by normal I mean not as wet).

Any ideas we could try? We really need the storage space... Thanks.

LadyDee

It would be cheaper to move - believe me! I had just such a house some years ago and after many enquiries, a survey, advice - the only way to control damp in such a cellar is a very expensive tanking job. You would be looking at several £0000s. If it's as bad as you say, putting a heater in the cellar would be throwing money away, and little moisture granules wouldn't touch it.

Unless something amazing has been developed in the last 20 years, I'd seriously be looking to move.

bertiewhite

Get yourself an outside storage shed - one of the metal variety, that you can take with you.

Doozergirl

Cellars are supposed to be damp. They are also supposed to be ventilated.

It is probably suffering from a lack of ventilation, hence the mould. Can you see plenty of daylight through the airbricks? The plasterboard should also come down as it blocks airflow to the joists and can cause rot.

The water table rises in winter, hence the floor becoming wet. It is perfectly normal.

It is possible that water from the guttering isn't draining correctly making it damper than it might be, but the water table rises in winter, which would explain the floor becoming wet. It is perfectly normal.

I think that improvements can be made if the cellar has been laid out in such a way that you expect to be able to store regular items down there. That doesn't make it a 'problem' to be solved because they aren't designed for things like cardboard or anything that is susceptible to humidity and so your expectations are probably also a bit high.

Davesnave

Peggy0628 wrote: »

Any ideas we could try? We really need the storage space... Thanks.

Have you access to the loft?

Your cellar is perfectly normal, though possibly under-ventilated. It's not going to change much from alterationswithin the parameters of what a tenant can normally do.

bertiewhite

Davesnave wrote: »

Have you access to the loft?

No, they don't..

Peggy0628 wrote: »

the loft hatch has been boarded up.

Davesnave

bertiewhite wrote: »

No, they don't..

Ooops! Must've been in doddering old git mode...