Budget cellar tanking

[avocado]

I need to tank my cellar on a tight budget. I'm thinking of lining the walls with damp proof membrane, held on with battons screwed with stainless screws. The membrane will be left slightly slack between the vertical battons to allow drainage of water.

I'm thinking of using guttering sunk into pea gravel at the wall/floor junction, all draining into a sump in the corner. The floor, too will be covered with membrane, not sure how to allow drainage or bond it to the wall membrane yet though. The whole lot will then be dry lined over the battons.

Is this going to go terribly wrong? As long as I can bond the membrane together to form a watertight seal i can't see any problems.

The commercial studded membrane is way over my budget.

[Martin Pentreath]

I can't comment directly on your suggestion - I don't have any experience of tanking. But are you planning on using the cellar as habitable space, or just wanting it to be a dry storage area? I use mine for storage, and I've found that an =A380 dehumidifier works fine for this purpose - cheaper and a lot less work. Luckily my main drain goes through the cellar, so mine is plumbed in for a plug-in-and- forget solution.

Cheers!

Martin

[Stuart Noble]

You could probably rig something up with battens > plastic sheet > wire mesh > plaster. A common problem in shop premises so try asking a plasterer. At least you'll find out what needs doing, and you can decide whether it's something you want to attempt.

[Fash]

What is your budget? I did a diy studded membrane plus drainage recently so can tell you what it really costs. Three other questions: what is the planned usage? Do you care about building control? Are you removing the existing floor (relevant to how to drain)? If you post back answers to these questions I can give you some costed options.

Fash

[Steve Firth]

Have a look at Delta membranes. IMO they offer the best price/performance balance. I've just tanked a couple of rooms using Delta membrane and I'm very pleased with the end result.

[avocado]

Fash

My budget is as cheap as possible, no more than 500 UKP for the lot. I already have a hippo pump and a plastic water tank for the sump. I don't care about building control, keeping the existing concrete floor with channel around the outside, then floorboard on top of membrane.

[Fash]

I used wykamol membrane and it cost 800UKP for a room which is

18'x13'. Bought direct from wykamol contact details on the web somewhere. I think your biggest problem is the perimeter drainage. I put a new concrete floor in which actually makes it much easier as then you can put the drainage under the concrete, you just need access to the pump (which I've got in an inspection chamber behind the cellar.

Anyway, in your case the pea shingle is fine, but rather than guttering get some perforated land drain pipe and use that to carry the water from the shingle into the sump tank. (Think about using some geotextile (about =A340 for some Terram or similar to make sure it doesn't end up clogged with soil and stuff.) For details on the joints then I would look at the commercial membrane sites (safeguard, delta, newton). I would strongly recommend using the pucker membrane on the floor and lapped up the bottom foot or so of the walls. I think you can then get away with dropping a standard polythene membrane down the walls (just secured at the top like a curtain). Unless you are going to seal it at the top then there is no real benefit in sealing the joint between the floor membrane and the wall membrane. If you don't seal it then any condensation which forms on the inside of the wall membrane will generally drain behind the joint and into the floor drainage. The benefit of the dimpled membrane for the floor is the positive channel space created, plus the stiffness means it will form an upstand nicely. Unless the room is massive one roll of the membrane from wykamol (20m x 2m - something like that) will be sufficient and then some sealing tape as well. You should be able to get that in on budget.

Fash