Concrete floor

[jonowilliams]

Hi!

I'm looking at purchasing the house next door to my in-laws for some crazy reason.

I know these houses suffer immensely from damp from the existing concrete floors. Apparently they're built on an old stream, they do have wells in the rear gardens and a lake not more than 50metres away.

I've just finished helping the father in-law dig up his entire ground floor so kinda know what to expect but I want to keep concrete as the floor (extremely heavy fish tank) rather than move over to timber joist as he has.

The existing concrete floor seems to be 100mm of concrete which may of been added on top of another 100mm of concrete over the years and then any old rubble for hardcore.

The lower layer of concrete is fairly wet and crumbles very easily once the breaker touches it.

I've been doing some reading and I've seen bitumen paint recommended as the membrane. So my thoughts are could I remove the top 100mm of concrete, allow the lower concrete to dry out over a few weeks, paint with bitumen paint (on concrete up walls to the damp course?) And get some fresh gen 3? Concrete poured?

Looking for lower cost, quick turn around so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks
Jono

 

[Deleted member 174758]

If you intend to dig up the top layer of concrete then surely a layer of 1000 or 1200 gauge Visqueen DPM on top of a thin layer of sand would be a better bet

 

[jonowilliams]

Not sure mate that's why I've asked.

Just been reading that the bitumen seems the dogs danglys

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Problem with bitumen is that it can harden and crack with age - which is precisely why Visqueen (1000 or 1200 gauge polyethylene) replaced it - well that and price