Cellar floor problem

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21 Jun 2010
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Northamptonshire
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Hi - we have an Edwardian terrace with a cellar. The cellar was converted to a room by cowboys, and we've just sorted out a serious dry rot problem by stripping the whole lot out. The problem that I have to fix (first!) is that they put the battens on the walls first and then put down a membrane & screeded the floor. As we've removed all the battens and plasterboard walls, we have a 2" gap all the way round the cellar between the walls and the floor.

I need to fill the gap with something - but am worried that I'm going to bridge the slightly damp walls to the floor screed. Anyone got any suggestions on the best way to go about this?

Cheers
 
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This sounds like a real botch of a job, you will also need to treat the walls, there is no point in carrying out any work untill this is done as the damp problem is always going to reoccur.
 
Cheers - yeah we've had the damp people in to do the walls and as we're leaving them exposed for the moment - we're going to paint them with a waterproof coating that the damp people recommended - any ideas on the gap though?

Others have suggested that waterproof foam filler stuff - which might be an idea - though others are gratefully received.
 
Cheers - yeah we've had the damp people in to do the walls and as we're leaving them exposed for the moment - we're going to paint them with a waterproof coating that the damp people recommended - any ideas on the gap though?

Others have suggested that waterproof foam filler stuff - which might be an idea - though others are gratefully received.

Good to know youve had the walls done, maybe expensive but is the best solution.

In respect to the gap, it depends on how much DPM is left, if they have dressed it just passed the screed edge you will need to attach a further piece of DPM to the already laid and seal it using a double sided DPM sealing tape and dress it up the wall by around 50mm. As an extra measure I would also use the jointing tape between the dressed up DPM and the newly treated walls thus preventing any moisture penetration.

The gap itself is not that big of a problem (depending on the size). If you were to re-screed this would cause issues with cracking etc, but personally I would use a timber batten to seal the gap. This may not sound sufficient but I work on quite large projects and we use timber regulary to split screeds at the base of walls as it is an excellent natural insulator and has excellent acoustic properties.

I hope that the above helps.
 
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Thanks for that Huw. Have to say though - that after dealing with serious dry rot - I'm never going to put timber down in a trough in the cellar floor - I'd never sleep at night! ;)
 

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