water running into cellar

[fatbird]

Hello, I've just joined this forum looking for some experience dealing with leaky old cellars.
Our property dates to 1742 and has a stone built, vaulted cellar which lets water in when it rains. When it rains heavily and/or for a sustained period, it pours in (a depth of 7-8" over a 24 hour period) and we are pumping it out. The house is on a sloping site and the water is coming in on the high side where the ground water pressure will be highest. There is a gully in the floor which is blocked and no longer working but I don't think it ever connected to a drain as the level of the cellar floor is well below the invert level of the nearest manhole. We have ruled out this being caused by leaking incoming water mains or leaking waste pipework (it's not smelly/soapy and starts with wet weather) so I am sure it is ground water.
Ideally I realise this would be best tackled from outside, but it would be extremely difficult (impossible!) to dig this deep alongside this wall as it would block both doors into the house and is along a path only about 2'6" - 3' wide beyond which the ground rises behind a 3' retaining wall.
When it stops raining we will dig up the cellar floor and see whether the drain can be repaired, but I still don't like to think of all that water washing through the wall. If it ever had mortar there won't be much left!
Has anyone successfully tried anything applied to the internal face of a cellar wall in these circumstances?
Thanks

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Just bumping this one up the threads. Although I have a feeling that in 1742 a bit of moisture in the cellar was normal, and this may just be the way that this particular house works after what we've been getting recently.

 

[fluffytail10]

Hi, we had a very similar problem as the picture shows. The problem was not ground water exactly but surface rainwater sinking down and coming in through a hole where a neighbour's water pipe had come in. We sorted it out by redirecting down pipes further along the drive and past the area where the cellar is. It seems to have fixed it completely.

 

[Feltwell]

I think the fundamentally cellars are nearly always damp, and to battle against that by sealing them up in an attempt to create a habitable room (as many do) is just simply not a good idea. What you describe though is something quite different, I too wouldn't be happy if the cellar flooded every time it rained.

My cellar is damp, and has flooded once in our time here - only to a depth of about 3". Previous owners told us that flooding had been a regular problem until they replaced the drains, once that was done they had no further floods. When the cellar flooded in our ownership, it was during a period of exceptionally wet weather when there were major floods in this area so I'm sure it was just groundwater. We still use the cellar to store items, but everything of value is raised a few inches off the floor just in case.

I think trying to seal your cellar wall internally is a non-starter personally. The fact there is a gully in the floor indicates there has been flooding in the past - the house has been there for over 250 years, if the cellar wall is still in good condition then I wouldn't worry too much about the water damaging it, whatever path it is using to get in will be well established by now!

Your internal gully may well be below the invert of the nearest manhole, but if you're on a slope then it may well have never connected to a drain - it may have just connected to a soakaway or just simply exited to the surface further down the slope. Are you sure it's a gully and not just a sump, i.e. a hole where a past owner has pumped out from? If it is a gully then definitely have a go at clearing it, a double worm screw on a set of drain rods is cheap and works well.

Re. where the water comes from - don't rule out your drains. You've *probably* got a combined drain system, where all your foul water and rainwater from the roof goes down the same pipe to the sewer - that's the most common type in an old house. The water in your cellar may appear clean but when it rains heavily the vast majority of water going down your drains will be rainwater - if that is leaking into the soil and saturating it, the dilution of your waste water and the filtering effect of the soil will make it appear to be fairly clean by the time it gets into your cellar. You could try putting some tracer dye down your drain and see if that gets into your cellar, although the dilution maybe so great that it won't show up. I'd say that getting your drains checked would be a good idea, a camera survey being by far the easiest way!

The last possibility I can think of is if you've got an old, unknown rainwater tank that is leaking. It's not unknown for old houses to have these, especially in hard water areas - rainwater is always soft and much better for washing clothes with. If there's no evidence of a tank then a camera survey should determine where all the downpipes connect to. Have you tried putting water into all your roof downpipes / external gullies and making sure it appears and flows straight through your manholes? If not then it's got to be going somewhere!

Hope that helps.

 

[88v8]

Our house is on a steepish slope.

We had the stone cellar stairs restored, and, while they were out, water came into the stair footprint at two points on the uphill side. Groundwater, or a small stream, percolating through the clay. Only happened after heavy rain, and I'm sure it had been happening for the last 400 years which is why the stairs were always damp. At its worst, it got to about 6" deep.
PO had the cellar lined with a Protim membrane, and the floor DPMd, but had left the stairs as 'too difficult', which is probably why the cellar flooded in the torrents of 2007.

Before the stairs were rebuilt, we had a 3" land drain put around the perimeter of the stairwell, leading into a 20 gallon sump where a submersible pump periodically pumps it up and out onto the downhill garden. The sound of water trickling into the sump is quite therapeutic.

The work was done by this small company
http://www.thomsonlocal.com/Frampton%20Consultants%20Ltd/0211481402002395010/companyinfo.html
who I thoroughly recommend to anyone in the area.

Ivor

 

[vicky whitworth]

When we lived in Dorking our cellar would flood a bit when it rained - water spurted out of the walls quite spectacularly. We were told that cellars were either dry cellars or wet cellars. The houses further down the hill than us filled with water up to 2 foot in the cellar when it rained. No one thought it odd. That's the fun of a cellar. :?

 

[fatbird]

Thanks all for your suggestions and advice.... Maybe I don't need to panic just yet!
We have today found a steady flow of water coming through the base of a retaining wall from the neighbours drive which is about 6 feet above our property, and this may be adding to the problem. I think we will have to dig here and see if we can pipe it into a drain. Also a thorough check of the drain that takes our roof water would be a good plan. I don't think it leaks, but it is in the right place to be contributing to the problem if it does.
Back to plan A then - diverting the water away from outside (if we can find it) rather than trying to seal the inside.
Thanks again.