I moved into my new (old) house last weekend. It's a fairly substantial Victorian with a coach house, the two structures being connected by a passage at first floor height and a covered sideway at ground floor level.
It was clear from the start that there has been a bit of settlement around the sideway, which has so far been put down to some drain leakage and I am in the process of getting that done. However, I was talking to someone who told me that when it rains heavily and the ground becomes saturated, water collects at the back of the house (there's a slight rise to the rear garden - maybe 4 feet over 150 feet) until it floods into the sideway and flows to the front of the house. Been happening for years, he says.
I have a suspicion that this might be a more significant cause of problems than any small leaks from the drains. Even if it isn't, it would make sense to deal with it asap, along with the drain repairs.
I'm presuming that it should be possible to do something in the garden to divert water flows into the main drain but I'm wondering what scale this should be on (ie one channel close to the house or a more elaborate land drain system).
Does anyone here have experience of draining land in this context? I suspect that talking to drainage people would be a bit of a waste of time, since they mostly just re-line pipes etc in urban areas and this is more of an agricultural issue.
It'll certainly require more than an angle grinder and some WD40!