Water under house

[summ3r]

There has been water leaking from a pipe under my house - probably since it was built 20 years ago. Previous owner did nothing - but I'd been noticing bad smells.

The plumbers say the water from my wahing machine has been discharging from the pipe under the concrete level at the back of the house.

Now - I'm hoping the plumbers can fix the pipe - but I'm worried about the building and structure itself. Any advice welcome before attempts are made to dry things up.

 

[Steve]

water quite often sits under houses, where the crawl space is lower than the water table. Ours once came up to joist level (3ft deep)

Once the pipe is fixed, give it a week or 2 to get rid of the water, then play a fan into the floorspace for a week, giving positive air pressure, which will blow the moisture out of the air bricks. Clearly this will work best where you have a good seal between the floor space and the house. A carpet will do, and cut a board around the fan so no air blows back.

Contact your insurers. They did it for us (did most of the houses on the street too), they will also use a disinfectant "bomb" which sprays disinfectant gas everywhere down there.

 

[summ3r]

Many thanks.

This section of the house (extension) can be shut off - at the moment it is very smelly. Insurance is covering the clean up, but not the broken pipe.

I was worried about the structure of the house itself (90s timber frame).

Thanks again for the reassurance and advice!