Suspected water leak under concrete floor

[Hightowermark]

Hi everyone,

Looking for some advice. Recently bought a property (1920's) that does need a good about of renovation and I can do a good amount of it myself (and friends help etc).

I lifted the carpet/underlay in the LR today so start stripping this room out. (Walls need to be chased for new electrics (not me doing this) new ceilings etc.

I noticed big cracks in the concrete floor and you can see its lifted in the middle of the room (about 1" difference over the room) also there is a green tinge to some of the cracks. I looked and could see water pipes are buried under the floor by the kitchen door so my suspect is this is leaking and over time and gone into the sub floor. Not on a water meter and pressure seems ok on the boiler (new boiler installed 10 years ago) but have not really run it as there is no need.

Now I'm assuming this floor will need to be dug up, water pipe removed and rerouted to another place and then a new floor put in. Is this something a competent person could do or should you leave it to a professional? I'm thinking might as well insulate the floor while we are at it.

If you can do it yourself how far down would you need to dig out and then what order would you need to do the replacement? I'm toying with doing all the rubbish work and getting someone in to lay the concrete as it needs to be level.

Has anyone done this sort of thing themselves?



Thanks

 

[CBW]

I can’t see as there’s no photos attached

 

[oldbutnotdead]

That's all DIYable, hard graft but nothing more.
Good odds the concrete is a relatively recent replacement for original suspended timber, highly likely there was little or no preparation before it was chucked in.
You need to go down 300mm or so, definitely dig out any loose rubbish that's in there (as above you'll probably find halfbricks and all sorts of rubbish under a thin concrete skin) til you get to undisturbed subsoil.
Depending on the ground you might need to chuck in hardcore and pack it down, then blinding sand, then DPM, then insulation (think minimum now is 120mm Celotex or similar), then 100mm concrete.

 

[lostinthelight]

Maybe install UFH pipes while your at it as well.