Water under house. Any advice appreciated

[Gemmalou]

Hi there, my name is Gemma, i've just signed up to your forum and have a problem I hope you can help me with.
I live in an end terraced house, right next to a rail way line. There has always been an issue with a bit of water under the house but about 2 year ago they did some work on the line and the water issue has since been a huge problem that needs to be pumped out every few weeks. There is now damp in the house and often a stale water smell coming from under the house.
I just wondered if any one could tell me who it is I need to contact just to find our where it's coming from and if it can be fixed.
Any thing you guys (or girls) could tell me would be great, thanks.

 

[Nige F]

Permanent Way dept. of Railtrack ? maybe

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Unless it can be proved they're causing the problem, and if its not affecting the lines, I doubt Railtrack would be interested. How much water are you talking about, what was done to the line when this problem became worse?

Without looking at the site, levels etc its difficult to say. Could be anything a leaking pipe, blocked drain, spring water. It might be worth contacting Environmental Health at the council, they can test the water and may be able to shed some light on the source. Depending on the amount of water involved, a pump could be fitted under the floor which will keep the level under control.

 

[Gemmalou]

Hi Hugh, thanks for getting back to me.
I agree, I doubt i'd get any where with Railtrack but it did only get this bad after the work they'd done. I'm not sure what it was but it involved some beasty machines. They'd make the ground shake sometimes.

It's just been pumped out this weekend and i'd say there was a good foot of water. It's not soil and I know that it's not coming form my house but there is chance it's coming from one of the houses up the street and draining down into mine. If I rang the Environmental Health, would they be able to help me find where it's coming from?

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Environmental Health may be able to check as to whether there is a leaking and/or broken drain in the vicinity. Its possible Railtracks works, if they caused slight ground movement, have disturbed something. A smoke test or CCTV survey on the drains may shed some light if there's anything wrong.

 

[mointainwalker]

Gemma

You say you live " right next to a railway line" just how far is that exactly, as it is normally a decent distance ?

Is the line on the same level as you or higher or lower ?

It is possible that the ground-shaking you experienced was due to machinery pounding the track-bed under the line to consolidate the ground/track-bed so that the actual rails were more solidly supported to give a smoother ride.

This in itself would only compact a very small area of surface below and very close to the line and would be very unlikely to create any effect that you describe, at least in my opinion.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Is the line regularly used by goods trains? I was working on a site next to the Midland mainline, driving an 18 tonne JCB. There was a daily train from the quarry in Leicestershire carrying crushed granite southwards. With the number of laden trucks being pulled it was obviously carrying substantial weight, and I used to feel a noticeable vibration through the ground as it passed, even whilst driving the JCB.

 

[Gemmalou]

Hi guys,
Mointainwalker, the the line is just a few feet from the house and it's a higher level to us. It's about level with my bedroom window. I think it was something to do with the track bed. Do you think that's probably not the cause?
Hugh Jaleak, The line has 1 passenger train each way, every hour. The trains are only 2 or 3 passenger carriages. Very rarely i'll hear and feel a freight train in the middle of the night. It's not a busy line at all.

 

[JohnD]

a few

how many is that?

 

[mointainwalker]

Gemma

You're not in a great position with the line that close and so much higher.

Since the track-bed is designed to be free-draining, whatever water falls on it will drain towards you because of the height-difference. That has , however, always been the case and I can't think of any reason why the recent work should have changed things dramatically.

If you could get somebody from Railtrack to come and look at the problem, you might get a free diagnosis if it's something they've encountered before, but , realistically, they are very unlikely to say it's anything to do with their track. Sorry.

AS HJ suggested, on a practical level,have you thought about buying a small pump - think they might be called sump-pumps - which is left in place and switches on when the water reaches a certain level. This should help with the problem of musty smell and maybe dampness too.

 

[Gemmalou]

John D, a few is probably 4 or 5 at the most. It's very, very close.

Mointain, we've always had the water problem but it only needed pumping out every so often, we'd only get a couple of inches. It's since the work that it has got much worse. I've got a day off now so i'm going to ring around. I know I will get no where with Railtrack but i'll give it a go.
Will let you know what they say.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Keep us updated Gemma please. Its difficult to advise precisely without seeing the site, but educated guesses can be offered to possible causes.

As mointainwalker has said, water from the line will drain towards you. It may be possible there is a drain of some description at the foot of the railway embankment that has become blocked and not allowing the water to drain away as intended. How does the land lie looking away from the embankment?

 

[mointainwalker]

@ HJ

Given that most railway lines - certainly those five feet away from a house- have been in place for at least a century, I'll bet you 100 pnds that there is no drain in this situation and therefore no blockage.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

I wish a had a spare £100 to bet!

Im unsure to the situation with drainage, I have a cutting behind my house that carried a line closed and pulled up in the 60's. They cleared it last year, plans afoot to put a cycle path along there. I walked it out of curiosity at the time, it was too overgrown to access prior to this. At intervals there are open chambers, built from purple/blue bricks that seem to be a drainage system of some description, 6" pipes in and out, and some have water flowing through. At this point the cutting is fairly deep yet still doesnt collect water so it I assume its going somewhere. (Note, this area is built on blue clay.)

In Gemma's situation I was thinking along the lines of either something similar or possibly an open ditch that may have become silted up over time.

 

[alittlerespect]

Something someone has done has affected the water table, that is it has risen and it may be more to do with a change in local conditions rather than the railway line, although the railway line will possibly act as a cofferdam and restrict the movement of the groundwater away from the house.


Best solution as someone has already suggested would be to fit a sump pump although you will need to dig a small sump in the oversite (a hole in the ground!) say 500mm x 500mm x 450mm deep, the ground water should then collect in the sump and the sump-pump will activate and pump the water out to wherever you have run the discharge pipe (not into the garden - if you have a back inlet gulley to the bathroom waste feed the discharge pipe into the gulley or other simialr point.

Hopefully it should solve your problem altogether. Icing on the cake cover the hole with a 600 x 600 marshalls paving slab and just monitor the sump pump from time to time to make sure it hasn't broken down.

Regards