Lowering Ground Levels

[Zimmith]

Hi,

We are just about to purchase a property and amongst a few other things, we were advised to lower the ground floor around the side of the property as it has concrete slabs forming part of the driveway. These concrete slabs reduce the distance from the ground to the DPC. Any advice as to what we can do ourselves, or is it a job for a professional?

For your reference, it is a 2 bed semi-detached property and the lady living in it has had no problems since she has been living there. (12 years) The concrete slabs have likely been there for a very long time, perhaps before the lady moved in but we are not sure. The survey came back negative for any ground level damp problems.

Any advice is massively appreciated. Thanks!
Mark

 

[r896neo]

It is a common thing to come across and will always be picked up by surveys.

The regulation is for finished paving/ ground levels to be 150mm (works out about 2 bricks) below the dpc.

In reality there are many homes across the country with less than this which do not have adverse damp issues because of it. So it won;t necessarily cause damp to be 75mm below it but it might in certain situations.

It is very straight forward to do yourself if so inclined and simply requires removing the paving/concrete and digging down a bit. The only danger is hitting an buried services so a little bit of quick investigation first to establish the depth of drainage pipes etc and route of oil lines is prudent. That said hitting either of those is very cheap and easy to fix. Mains gas water electric etc should be much deeper but even if not hand digging you would be very unlucky to damage them.

Its up to you, if there is no current problem then maybe live with it but if you plan to replace the paving/concrete in the future then take it down a bit but any decent builder/landscaper will advise you to do that anyway.