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Wet slab and freshly laid padstone - is it a problem?


Adsibob

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For those not in the South-East, there was some pretty incredible flash floods here yesterday. You can see pictures and videos here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57816647

Where I am in London, we had more than 40mm of rain in just an hour and several inches over the course of the afternoon/evening. Wading in welly boots didn't really protect your socks from getting wet it was that bad. 

Unfortunately, my house is about 1m below the street level, so as soon as the street and pavement flooded it all came down into our property. Although we have a trench dug all around the property (where we plan on putting in a french drain) the water filled the trench and then came in. The trench is about 30cm deep and about 35cm wide but it just filled with water. It didn't help that there were some old air bricks on the wall where the trench is (previous owners raised the patio above the DPC and blocked off some of the air bricks, so trench has uncovered those air bricks.

The only potential damage that has been done is that our slab has got wet and a freshly poured padstone has a bit as well. Of the slab, some was laid about a month ago, some was laid about two weeks ago and some was laid about a week ago (so 6 days before the flood). A padstone which was poured about 4 or 5 hours before the flood also got a little bit wet, it sits on a piece of DPM above the slab which was poured about 2 weeks ago but not as much of this padstone got wet because it is on the side of the room and was somewhat protected by some crates in front of it. The builder pumped the water out on Monday evening but it continued to drain into the property overnight and he had to pump it out again this morning.

 

Is this a problem? My main concern was the padstone, but he assured me it was fine and invited me to prod it.

 

Is this all fine? Does it matter that it will all be damp when we install the membrane and insulation in about 2 weeks. Or will the rainwater not have penetrated the concrete and so actually it will dry quicker than 2 weeks. 

 

There is no rain forecast for the next 10 days and I'm imploring the builder to finish the french drain in that time.

 

 

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