Excesive moisture in old house

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: :lol: :lol: Awww, bless you for noticing that. See, look everyone, there's a woman with a beautiful dog and cats and she understands the appeal of all.

All four points are true, but most especially number 3. He's been my constant shadow for 8 years now, ever since that memorable night I made a trip from Highgate to Boston and took him on the London Underground back to our flat as a little dot of a kitten. He doesn't let me out of his sight.

He's a gentle old thing in the main, has only killed two birds in his life, and now undertakes to feed my chickens with mice (they love mice) which is awfully sweet of him. When we play opera he rolls on his back and purrs. Jazz makes him wild.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Jazz makes him wild.

Oooh me too 8)

 

[yamin]

now undertakes to feed my chickens with mice (they love mice) which is awfully sweet of him. When we play opera he rolls on his back and purrs. Jazz makes him wild.

He sounds a wonderful puss, and if he wasn't yours, he should be the cherished companion to a wonderful silk-clad old queen from the theatre, living in a smoke filled, deep dark red Hampstead flat, with walls covered in old acting pictures, smoke rising from a hookah and Ella Fitzgerald filling the ears.

 

[Flyfisher]

Jazz makes him wild.

Niiiiiice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKnLfNnudvQ

 

[Gareth Hughes]

now undertakes to feed my chickens with mice (they love mice) which is awfully sweet of him. When we play opera he rolls on his back and purrs. Jazz makes him wild.

He sounds a wonderful puss, and if he wasn't yours, he should be the cherished companion to a wonderful silk-clad old queen from the theatre, living in a smoke filled, deep dark red Hampstead flat, with walls covered in old acting pictures, smoke rising from a hookah and Ella Fitzgerald filling the ears.

Meet MacCavity's new master:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B38g-tLOTFI

 

[Schoolmarm]

Lol! Jazz club was so funny.


And Fry and Laurie excellent :lol:

 

[robgil]

Jazz makes him wild.

My cat is quite partial to some Oscar Peterson however avant-garde and free jazz by such artists as Art Blakey and Ornette Coleman are her favourites , she doesnt go wild as such , shes way too old for that kind of behaviour but she will sit up by a speaker and pay attention to the music. Beethoven is another of her faves.

That rainwater pipe that goes into the ground , does that go into a drain or into the underground rain water tank?

 

[yamin]

now undertakes to feed my chickens with mice (they love mice) which is awfully sweet of him. When we play opera he rolls on his back and purrs. Jazz makes him wild.

He sounds a wonderful puss, and if he wasn't yours, he should be the cherished companion to a wonderful silk-clad old queen from the theatre, living in a smoke filled, deep dark red Hampstead flat, with walls covered in old acting pictures, smoke rising from a hookah and Ella Fitzgerald filling the ears.

Meet MacCavity's new master:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B38g-tLOTFI

Inspired!!! Exactly the owner I had in mind! Joce, hand him over! :lol: :lol:

 

[JoceAndChris]

Shan't - not even to lovely Stephen Fry.

Those two links from FF and GH were brilliant! :lol: xxx And awwww to Clothilde, what a nice puss. Clothilde's a lovely name, must remember to use it. I'm pleased to see that the name "Macavity" from the TS Eliot poem has entered the English language, I 've seen it written a couple of times in the newspaper as an adjective to describe sly or underhand behaviour.

He sounds a wonderful puss, and if he wasn't yours, he should be the cherished companion to a wonderful silk-clad old queen from the theatre, living in a smoke filled, deep dark red Hampstead flat, with walls covered in old acting pictures, smoke rising from a hookah and Ella Fitzgerald filling the ears.

That's just perfect. xxx

That rainwater pipe that goes into the ground , does that go into a drain or into the underground rain water tank?

Your cat sounds like a very clever, sensible girl Rob - and that pipe goes into the rain water tank.

And huge apologies to the OP for stealing this thread - don't hesitate to bring it firmly back into line!

 

[AMc]

Shan't - not even to lovely Stephen Fry.

That rainwater pipe that goes into the ground , does that go into a drain or into the underground rain water tank?

Your cat sounds like a very clever, sensible girl Rob - and that pipe goes into the rain water tank.

At the risk of stating the obvious... would it not be advisable to start by rerouting the downpipe(s) away from leaky tank to a proper soakaway - or in the shorter term downhill from the house? While the soakaway isn't a trivial undertaking it's mostly simple earthworks - digging a big hole, filling it with plastic storm crates wrapped in geotextile and a few lengths of soil pipe. If you can start to channel water away from the tank and deal with the water in there then you will have less water coming through the wall to ventilate?

Forgive me if you've looked at all that before but yesterday I discovered yet more semi redundant Victorian/Edwardian/modern Elizabethan rain and foul water management under my own walls and I'm trying to decide if I need to dig everything up

 

[Penners]

I have to stand on tip-toe to get my important bits in the sink . . . .

I am so surprised to read that, FF. :wink:

Well, let's not jump to any conclusions. It seems to me that there are two possible explanations for that.

One is that the sink is too high....

 

[robgil]

AMc is spot on , divert the pipe, even fit a water butt if you can , pump out the tank then monitor it to see if it fills again. If the rain water tank is leaking you are basically taking all the rain that falls on your roof and piping it under your house to your cellar.
If the tank starts to fill again i would think about either getting down inside it to repair it or simply pouring a few tons of concrete into it , obviously the latter would be a last resort.

 

[JohnB]

Is there likely to be a problem diverting rain water away from the house? My downpipes dump the water at the base of the walls of my earth mortar stone house, that stands on clay with probably no foundations. Is there likely to be damaging movement if it dries out after 150+ years?

 

[robgil]

Is there likely to be a problem diverting rain water away from the house? My downpipes dump the water at the base of the walls of my earth mortar stone house, that stands on clay with probably no foundations. Is there likely to be damaging movement if it dries out after 150+ years?

do you have any damp problems?

 

[JohnB]

Is there likely to be a problem diverting rain water away from the house? My downpipes dump the water at the base of the walls of my earth mortar stone house, that stands on clay with probably no foundations. Is there likely to be damaging movement if it dries out after 150+ years?

do you have any damp problems?

Yes, some of it appears to be condensation (http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11219), and the walls are wet where the (dare I mention that word?) cement render and plaster has blown or cracked, but I don't think it's a major problem.

 

[Moo]

Joce - It certainly seems that the rainwater tank is the problem, so why not use Flyfisher's system to establish the facts: remove a section of that downpipe and attach some sort of tube long enough to take the rainwater somewhere else (the bottom of the garden, perhaps?). Then drain the tank (Chris will be able to rig up some sort of syphoning system) and wait.
If your kitchen floor ceases to flood, you've solved your problem. If it doesn't, and/or the tank fills with water again, at least you'll have eliminated one possible cause.

 

[Schoolmarm]

JOCE AND CHRIS USE IT FOR ALL WATER EXCEPT DRINKING!!! LOL!

 

[Moo]

Oh! I thought they relied on the well for their water supply.
But might it be worth trying my suggestion for a bit, anyway, just to find out if the tank has sprung a leak?

 

[robgil]

why not use a different storage tank?

 

[JoceAndChris]

You are all just so kind to put your wits to this hard problem.

Every drop of water is extremely precious here, especially in summer.

Rainwater feeds the loos and the bath/shower.

Well water feeds us, the dishwasher and the washing machine.

If one is looking low, at the turn of a lever the system can be cranked to be fed entirely by rainwater, or by well. It's clever.

The well is Georgian, and I suspect the rainwater tank is too as the vaulted brick construction within it matches that of the undercroft. It would be a shame to fill it in, but nevertheless I have no doubt it leaks. Fortunately the gradient of the garden means that it is natural for water to soak downwards and away from the cottage, so the leaking into the cottage, whilst worrying, is not of flood proportions.

We've examined going on mains or having a borehole, but either of those two options are coming out at 10-15 k.

I think Rob's idea of rerouting the guttering and downpipes (I think there are three pipes into the rainwater tank) so that all that water ends up in a new, unleaking tank piped up to the attic is extremely interesting, and it hadn't occured to me that it was possible to do it. I wonder how much that would be.