Basement Tanking Advice

CosmicDaisy

Hello, I am wondering if anyone may be able to advise on how to ensure I look after a newly Tanked Basement correctly.

I will be moving into a rented property soon which has undergone major renovation. There were issues with damp in the basement. This has been professionally tanked and lined with a drainage system and sump installed. Any water that finds it's way into the sump is automatically pumped outside.

My question is that there is no heat source in the basement and I'd like to use it as a utility space with perhaps a chest freezer and a condenser dryer. Even though the space is fully dried out and the tanking system working, is the fact it is an unheated room like to make it a cold spot in winter when central heating is on in the rest of the property?

I'm just worried about condensation if there is a difference in air temperature below ground in winter. I have a dehumidifier I can plug in down there but presumably with it tanked and having a proper drainage and pump system, that should not be necessary?

Would it be advised to put a heat source in the basement over winter? Does it even need heating in winter?

 

propertyrental

Ask your landlord for advice on any required maintenance of the area (over and above normal 'acting in a tenant-like manner').

tacpot12

If the condenser dryer is going to pump most air into the cellar, then this could cause a problem. It would be a good idea to check how the dryer operates and whether it outputs moist air. 

Ventilating the cellar and/or heating will help. You could use a oil-filled radiator that is left on continuously. They have a thermostat so you can set them to come on when the temperature gets below 7C. Such a radiator will also promote air flow around the cellar when it is operating as it will setup air currents. I'm not sure I would rush to add a radiator though. Perhaps try it without one for the first winter and see what happens. They are cheap enough to buy. The cellar will get some heat from above.

You could put at MAX/MIN thermometer like this one down there: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thermometer-Hygrometer-Temperature-Recording-Greenhouse/dp/B07ZCLRJ8D/

This will record hwo cold it gets, and also how humid. If the relative humidity (RH) gets above 80% then it is at risk of condensation forming (you could look up the Dew Point concept).

If you hear the sump pump operating, just keep an eye on it to ensure that it doesn't run for too long. If it runs for a long time, it might mean it is faulty or that more water is needing to be pumped out than expected. 

CosmicDaisy

Thank you. The electrician who is putting sockets in the cellar for me told me the pump works automatically and there's nothing I need to do myself. There are no actual controls anyway, it's all under a manhole. There's just a high level indicator on the wall nearby which is a small plastic box with an LED indicator light on it which I assume lights up when the water is being pumped out. 

I was sort of hoping being a condenser dryer then it will be dry air rather than moist but I agree with the need to find out what the actual relative humidity is down there to be sure. I had the idea of just leaving the door open when the dryer was on because the heat generated will rise upstairs and the heating would be on in the living space above anyway. 

It's one of those really handy spaces that would be wasted as just storage space and will make such a good utility room. It is quite spacious.

FreeBear

CosmicDaisy said:

Thank you. The electrician who is putting sockets in the cellar for me told me the pump works automatically and there's nothing I need to do myself.

Presumably, he is drilling in to these tanked walls for fixing conduit & back boxes.. That is going to compromise the tanking...

But as this is a rented property, minor details like that are not your problem.

CosmicDaisy

Oddly I'm getting a pop up saying this has been caught in the suspicious thread filter?

BarelySentientAI

CosmicDaisy said:

Oddly I'm getting a pop up saying this has been caught in the suspicious thread filter?

Tanked rooms are occasionally used for 'specialist horticulture', but I'm not sure that's the reason.

CosmicDaisy

Oh blimey! Definitely not that 😂 

youth_leader

Thank you BarelySentientAI, my daughter normally keeps me up to speed with modern vocabulary!  She was horrified when I messaged her to say I was sending her some edibles - I now know what that means and it isn't chocolate biscuits!

Bigphil1474

OP, we had a sump pump that we put in in our old house. Make sure the landlord gets it serviced every year. Ours had an alarm box on it which would sound if the pump stopped working. Fortunately it never happened, but the alarm was battery powered so would bleep (like a smoke alarm) when the battery needed replacing.

Personally, I wouldn't put a drier in the cellar (I wouldn't have a drier full stop anyway), but a chest freezer should be fine. Heating a cellar space all winter sounds expensive. 

CosmicDaisy

@Bigphil1474 thank you so much for this. I was going to write to the landlord before I move in to ask if the pump was going to be checked each year to make sure it was ok. I've only had a very brief discussion so far where I was told it is automatic and I won't have to do anything myself, but obviously I want to know what to listen for if things do go wrong. Not a good picture but this is the only thing above ground. It said high level indicator or something and there was just an LED on the box, the switch looking things just had fuse covers.