Advice needed before I start - Surface Drainage causing penetrating damp !!

[Superted87]

Hi guys and gals,


we moved in to a refurbished pub (Ground floor, 1 of 2, 3 others above) in Jan 2015 and in November 2015 had a bloom of clean fresh water in the middle of the flat. Which is pretty much the middle of the building.

Now the floor is suspended over the cellar and it is not full so its coming from somewhere above where it pools. Be it 1" above or 10m above but gravity is doing the rest. It pooled at the partition between our flat hallway and next doors bathroom. We thought bathroom problem but no such luck. It was raining hard outside so we assumed it was penetrating damp or a run off that had made its way in to the building. It is around the nub where an internal door frame is and the skirting board wraps around what would be a footplate, end vertical support and headplate for the stud wall underneath the plasterboard.

it dried up , we got on with our life and went abroad for 6 months.

Then whilst we were renting it out the cupboard next to the bathroom (along the hall, raised 300mm above rest of flat on concrete slab) started to ooze water. The cupboard got very wet and the carpets were pulled up and the property manager ditched them !!!!!!! idiot.

The water from the storm pooled heavily against our back wall (cupboard and bathroom walls) in the carpark (neighbour said 4-6" easily). We had a builder round who said there was no provision for run off of water or drainage for the car park and it had penetrated the wall.

Hey ho, we now have a fight with the builders as we would like them to pay for the carpets and loss of rent as the insurers have said it is an inherent fault with the property and wiped their hands.

We agree with them however surveyor who provided the surveyors warranty on the conversion is now saying it was storm water ingress so its for the insurance to deal with !!! He said they put in a run off and it should have cleared so no fault that he can see. Back to square one !!

I went to the flat today and removed the gravel on the so called "soakaway" , revealing only 2" of gravel then hard compacted mud and stones. Not a soakaway at all or a path for running water. with the wall to the left of the image it is like a swimming pool with nowhere to go. No wonder it comes through the bl**dy wall !

SO ...... sorry to ramble ..... What do we do as winter is coming and we are getting nowhere, flat is costing us £700 a month mortgage and we have £1000 of carpets to replace.

WWYD ????? Thanks in advance

I think not having the runaway breaches H3 of the building regs. Who agrees? Thanks

 

[Superted87]

I also think that water is working its way through the building via the footplate channel used in the partition wall but again, hard to prove and how do I go about fixing or getting them to fix it ! thanks again

 

[vinn]

You will do better for advice if you scan a sketch of a ground plan showing the affected internal & external areas in colour.
Photos will also help.
Show the cellar area and any solid floor area in the sketch..
Are your walls solid or cavity?
Are the internal floors FFL higher than the external ground level GL?
Is the cellar wet or dry?

Do next door complain of damp in their bathroom or anywhere else?

FWIW, dont get yourself involved with Blg Regs etc. - stick with simple things.

 

[Superted87]

Awesome , thanks for the advice, i will get some bits up first thing tomorrow.

We had a major development today with the surveyor who has contacted the builder and they have finally decided that the drainage is inadequate, (albeit they claim that it was all made to the specs that were specified...... so what !!! It still your fault or your designer!!!) so they will carry out remedial work to rectify the situation. I am treating this as an admission of liability as they are happy now to remedy something which was previously supposedly "fit for purpose". The main thing we are worried about is the cost of the carpet and the chance of it all happening again and us not being able to claim on the insurance again. Especially within the flat itself in the lower hallway/guest room as this is the main thoroughfare of the flat.

I will post up pictures first thing in the morning once I can get the plans etc annotated.

Thanks

 

[Superted87]

SO below is a picture as requested, overall gradient is from left to right, and top to bottom so basically all towards the bottom right corner.

The french drain around the building is functional however I fear maybe the source of the water that arrives in our lower hallway.

The drainage at the back of our flat , by the bathroom, really is a pooling area and the floor level equals that in the cupboard where the blue area is highlighted. The other blue area in the lower hall is where it pools, which i believe is coming along the foot plate of the partition coming from next door.

The lower hallway is funnily enough , lower than the ground level and thinking about it is the lowest point in the building. (lightbulb moment maybe).

Everything brown is suspended over a dry cellar, everything yellow is a concrete slab that is at the level of the soakaway and is the site of the pooling in the upper hallway area.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Anyone know the legals with respect to them agreeing to come back and remedy the drainage. It has caused over £1000 worth of carpet damage and £800 in lost rent.

 

[vinn]

Thank you for the sketch.

From what I can make out you have two separate damp areas with no obvious connection between them.
I suspect that the property was built in stages over many years.

The French drain stops short of going fully round the car park side so I assume its draining back towards the main rd?
The short length of French drain that presumably goes into the soakaway is higher than the inside slab? Where does the soakaway run to?
Then there's the matter of the cellar backing on to a stream - am I right?

What is the "footplate channel in the partition wall"? What do you mean?

Presumably the damp in the bathroom is from your plumbing or tiling arrangements - or the neighbour's penetrating the party wall?

 

[Superted87]

HI thanks for your help again ,

to clarify

Footplate is what I know to be the baseplate of the stud framework, in this case it is metal channel C section partition fixed to the floor with the C section facing up to form a U shape. An ideal channel I feel for water that may enter anywhere (next door flat maybe ), running down until it meets a stopping point. This point would logically be where the 4x2 door frame sits in the vertical C channel and the bottom of it collecting the water and it pooling around the door frame in the lower hallway and guest bedroom.

There is no damp in the bathroom and the tiling, bathroom work has been investigated and found to be bone dry even under the boxing in by the toilet. The upper hallway cupboard is the affected area, and this has a concrete floor that is exactly level with the "soakaway" outside in the car park.

The soakaway is a shallow channel that goes right to left towards the stream. It has nowhere to go because the boundary wall is in the way. I would like a channel gutter to be fed in to the spare inlet on the drain cover that can be seen servicing our toilet and the vertical rain water drainpipe form the roof. But currently, it goes nowhere !!

The stream is 4ft below us and has never been anywhere near us. It really is not a concern for us in this instance.

Next door has reported no damp or water ingress at all, we checked when it first happened and she has not had any leaks or any problems to be fair.

The property dates to 1912 and the bathroom area in our flat has been added at a later point however we do not know when.


Thanks again