Damp Cellar – Solutions?

Anybody ever had a damp cellar sorted in an old house?

I’d be interested to know the options available. I guess they range from leaving door open to allow air to circulate (£free) to a dehumidifier (£hundreds) to fully lined walls, sump and pump, and tanking kind of thing (£thousands). But I really don’t know the first thing beyond that.

Any good resources online? Only stuff I’ve found has been trying to sell me things.

Depends on how damp it is, and what you want to use it for.
It’s just like any other hole dug in the ground – water will seep into it unless it’s sealed. Asphalt tanking will do the job properly but a cellar should have ventilation anyway.

“tanking” is the term you want to look for, there been some thread about it on here before now, try a search

If it’s your house, get it tanked and sumped and use it as a man cave, it’s a great way to securely store bikes 😀

two kinds of damp. water ingress and condensation. tanking will sort water ingress, insulation will sort condensation, BUT, its not as simple as that. if there is water ingress, tanking will only move the problem, if there is a source of water, it will move somewhere else (hopefully next door), but most commonly along a party wall, or up the wall in question. a combination of bitumen tanking, silicone injection, insulation and ventilation is the way to go, but doesn’t always guarantee results. speak to the experts and talk to their previous customers. damp is the most difficult thing to remedy in older houses and can be expensive. where are you? what kind of house?

It’s not my house. The cellar here (rented house) is thankfully nice and dry.

It’s my parent’s place, stone built end terrace, late 1800s, situated half way up a big hill in Sheffield. Cellar under living room at front of house. They’ve been talking about getting it sorted as they want to put the tumble dryer and a chest freezer down there, but nobody has any idea of the work required.

It’s not soaking, just… damp, like surface rust on tools, cardboard boxes go floppy after a few weeks kind of damp. Currently the only ventilation is the old coal chute which has a grill over it.

Used this stuff in the past to stop penetrating damp

http://www.oldroyd.com/Oldroyd-Xp/cid/15183/

Prob best have a building surveyor check it out

Starting point.

Combined with varying other techniques it could be bone dry and entirely habitable.

Got the same issue in te house I’m buying.. The cellar is under the whole ground floor and damp..
Been advised buy my builder mate to just open it up and leave it for a year.

Then get it tanked.

It will be then turned into a Mancave.

Give this a try, will cost less than 100 pounds. Restrict the venting and use a dehumidifier! I know it’s the opposite to what most people have said but…..

Cellars are cold
Cold air holds less water
Now ventilate with relatively warm air that’s loaded with moisture, when the air hits cold surfaces (everything in cellar) it’s going to leave condensation! Tools go rusty and cardboard goes soft and mouldy!

I had the same issue now it’s under control, on hot days I dehumidifier, otherwise I keepo all doors closed.

Of course, the complete fix is to dig up round the cellar, insulate on the outside and seal with that thick plastic!

I think that’s probably airflow. Our cellar (about 200+ years old) has been flooded to about 600mm for all of the winter and only drained about a month ago. The water table rose and there’s nothing you can do about that in a hurry.

It’s been doing that on and off since it was dug and though it’s stone built there’s plenty of moisture-retaining material there.

However, it’s well ventilated and everything above the water level has stayed in perfect condition.

I’ve now dug a big hole in the floor (Screwfix Titan rotary hammer for £70 made cutting a 400mm hole into 150mm reinforced concrete a pleasure – every hole should have one, although still suffering and taking the diclofenac and co-codamol from trying to lift too much rubble in too few trips) and put in a £70 screwfix sump pump to keep it under control in future. Well. the distribution board is down there and you don’t want to put your wetsuit on every time the power trips.

😆 @selled!
Because digging round the outside of a cellar is the easy option! 😯

If you’re thinking of Selled’s idea, you might as well move it to a more expensive neighbourhood at the same time and make a tidy profit.

And get one of those ridiculous American firms with the 154 wheeler orrys that take it there in one go…

A dehumidifier from somewhere likes wickes or b&q, less than 100 quid and keeps my double cellar fine and dry.

This is ours which has been done for 5 years now, its 4 rooms in total, and we have never had any damp problems since. Tanked with sump pump.

Did mine a couple of year ago. It had stone flags plonked on the soil and we had puddles every time it rained so I dug it out and concreted with a damp proof membrane underneath and having a simple ventilation pipe. I just painted the walls so while we still get moisture coming through the front wall (we are on a hill), it is dry.
Dry enough to have a freezer and other things down there.
Ventilation’s the key.

FD: I’m not entirely sure that counts as a cellar [in my books] seeing as it has a door going outside! Looks nice through.

We tried the ventilation option and it wasn’t enough so now we have a dehumidifier running down there that kicks in when humidity hits 60% and just circulates the air otherwise. It needs emptying about once a week in the summer and daily in the winter when we dry the washing down there.

I don’t think it’s much more expensive to run than a fridge.