Hi,
I currently have a number of damp problems, most coming from a cold and wet cellar. The biggest problems are that the two coal chutes which ventilated it have been filled with concrete (why?) and the garden has been build up with soil, then paving, then soil and then slate chippings, making it higher than the floorboards.
On the advice of a surveryor two air bricks have been installed and I am currently loweing the front garden to put a third one in, I then plan to add a small vent to the top/bottom of the cellar door (so it has ventilation in each corner of the space). If this fails I will put a fan in to actively vent it, but I'll see how this goes first.
My main question is this, while I intend to finish the garden as a gentle slope away from the house, starting 6" or so below the floor and certainly below the new airbricks, would it be wise to dig a trench alongside the cellar wall and backfill it with some sort of drainage gravel instead of mud to improve the drainage of water near the wall, or would this just encourage water toward the wall?
Ontop of that I have read that cladding the exterior wall below ground with styrofoam can prevent water getting in. This seems cheap and easy, does anybody have any information on it?
I currently have a number of damp problems, most coming from a cold and wet cellar. The biggest problems are that the two coal chutes which ventilated it have been filled with concrete (why?) and the garden has been build up with soil, then paving, then soil and then slate chippings, making it higher than the floorboards.
On the advice of a surveryor two air bricks have been installed and I am currently loweing the front garden to put a third one in, I then plan to add a small vent to the top/bottom of the cellar door (so it has ventilation in each corner of the space). If this fails I will put a fan in to actively vent it, but I'll see how this goes first.
My main question is this, while I intend to finish the garden as a gentle slope away from the house, starting 6" or so below the floor and certainly below the new airbricks, would it be wise to dig a trench alongside the cellar wall and backfill it with some sort of drainage gravel instead of mud to improve the drainage of water near the wall, or would this just encourage water toward the wall?
Ontop of that I have read that cladding the exterior wall below ground with styrofoam can prevent water getting in. This seems cheap and easy, does anybody have any information on it?