maznaz

Cheers, this sounds sensible. I have additional complications with a shared drain running down that passageway but I can at the very least cut away a piece to lower the level below my dpc and put pea shingle in or something. I'd love to be able to put in a proper drainage system that would divert water around the cellar though!

Thanks that’s what I was afraid of but it makes sense. I have no idea what to do with regards to the shared passage though. Given that the work was done without notifying the previous owner an I within my rights to expect the neighbour to rectify it? Or is it all too late?

HI there. I've bought a house which is an Edwardian terrace with a cellar. The rear is a full storey higher ground than the front, due to being on a large hill. COnsequently there's a lot of groundwater moving through the general area and the back of the house is quite damp. The rear room has no cellar below and has a suspended timber floor. I took the floor up in the dampest corner and found a few potential issues. There was almost no sub-floor ventilation as it's full of rubble with one air brick and seemingly no through ventilation to the cellar. But also, there is a clear DPC running about half a brick below the height of the external concreted floor. I've had a surveyor and a structural engineer for various reasons take a look at the place and neither of them seemed that fussed about the DPC being below ground level, but from my research that's a clear and likely source of damp ingress. We run a dehumidifer constantly to see if it will dry out with the boards up and although it keeps the damp smell at bay, the water keeps coming and the dehumidifier fills its reservoir daily. In order to try and improve things I'll be taking out a load of rubble and making a good cross-ventilated sub-floor, but am I fighting a losing battle if I don't sort out the ground level? I have two walls both external in that room and both are raised above the DPC. One was done by the previous owners and one is sadly a shared passage between houses that was renovated by the neighbour without gaining consent.

Interesting thank you. Two of them are habitable rooms with escapable windows and one is a small bathroom.

It's actually not been confirmed yet, but the original leasehold was issued in 1908. Having had a look around though, and given when i see from the EPC, it seems to be a rebuild from last mid-century. I'm pretty sure I saw breeze blocks in the cellar and it's confirmed as a cavity wall build with very neat brickwork on the exterior.

Hi there. I'm moving into a strange terrace house later this month. It has empty cavity walls, and a large loft space with 3 rooms separated by stud walls, and the roof is uninsulated (both according to the EPC. I would like to insulate the roof before the winter, and ideally before we start to use that area for living, however as I understand it, it's not as simple as just ripping off the plasterboard, putting insulation in and putting it back up. Is this something I can reasonably do myself? I have good woodworking skills, am fine with building stud walls etc, but have never done anything with a roof before. Some articles I've found are suggesting I'd need to insulate on the roof side of the roof joists, which seems like it would incur a lot of cost, scaffolding etc and move it out of my area to tackle. Others suggest I can insulate on the room side, but then I'd need to be certain the ventilation was adequate or I could end up with condensation on the cold joists. I'd also be worried about thermal bridging on the internal walls. What's a general MO for tackling something like this? Hire a builder (almost impossible right now) and hope they're competent? Many thanks!