I want to dry line a cellar - walls aren't running just efflorescent and flaky paint, no mould.
So 3X2 studwork spaced a few inches away from walls, pboard, maybe some insulation - building regs required?
Cheers Jim K
Almost certainly. OTOH, how soon are you planning to sell the house?
which aspects? thermal renovation of an element? what do they ask for in such situations?
OTOH, how soon are you planning to sell the house?
12-18months (shhh)Jim K
yes. In theory
its material alteration.
is it?
"(2) An alteration is material for the purposes of these Regulations if the work, or any part of it, would at any stage result=97
(a) in a building or controlled service or fitting not complying with a relevant requirement where previously it did; or
(b) in a building or controlled service or fitting which before the work commenced did not comply with a relevant requirement, being more unsatisfactory in relation to such a requirement."
so what could be worse?
I'm not planning any changes xcept lining out, elecs (by cert. sparky), radiator (by heating bod), no subdivision er....??
Only thing I can imagine is fire? - just because wood burns - after the plasterboard has eventually gone (by which time one would hope people would be out anyway) ?
Ping Hugo Nebula!
Jim K
On Friday 11 January 2013 11:20 Jim K wrote in uk.d-i-y:
It might be wise, from the POV of damp related problems that might happen as a result.
You are going to take a wall underground with (presumably) and unknown damp proof layer and and reduce or possibly block all water vapour escape from the walls (depending on whether you use celotex or *wool).
That could cause problems. I think in this case, I'd consider the 100 quid or so well spent just for some reasonable advice from the building inspector.
OTOH if you can tape polythene over all the walls (one at a time at least, seal all edges to the wall) and determine if any water vapour is getting through, that might make thinks a little more certain.
No water vapour = just do it. But, me, I'd want to test *all* the walls first.
It might look dry but probably isn't. The first thing to do is get a damp meter on the wall. If you cover it all up there may be a problem arises. You may have to put ventilators top and bottom of your lining to evaporate any moisture off.
There are anti-damp compounds you can apply. I haven't seen a totally successful one. Maybe there are better ones out now.
Tell no-one, there are too many interfering busybodies around.
If no-one can confirm the water table remains below the cellar floor all year round, with a guarantee, you need to go the tanking route.
For some repeated black bitumen coats are enough, otherwise it is the raised stud sheet fixed by O-ring plugs and sump pump as necessary. To do otherwise could be a recipe for a disaster, rot begins at 20%, plasterboard goes to mush etc.
On the other hand, if it is just for storage - why dry-line?
round, with a guarantee, you need to go the tanking route.
stud sheet fixed by O-ring plugs and sump pump as necessary.
aka tanking
plasterboard goes to mush etc.
?? 20% what?
Jim K
Sorry, rot begins at circa 20% moisture level.
eh? what units?
Jim K
Dry rot will begin at circa 20% timber moisture level (your 3x2), wet rot requires nearer 30%. Yes your wood may be treated, but the blunt reality is your dry walls may not remain dry once you create a sealed dry lined room within them.
There is no point in insulating your cellar. It is "earth shielded" and massively insulated already.
The reason it is cold down there is water evaporating from the walls. It was built to do exactly this for the storage of food & beverages before refrigerators were invented for the masses. The reason the paint is flaking is the damp coming through from the outside (as designed.)
If you prevent the evaporation from happening, you may change ground conditions outside the cellar wall and get actual water running in. Depending on what was done regarding drainage outside the wall when it was built.
There are high tech solutions to apply vertical damp courses to the inside of the cellar wall but battens and insulation and plasterboard isn't one of them.
No. it's called a "massive heat sink" NOT "insulated".
Of course the lack of heating and the vents to the outside will also help to keep the temp well down?
surprised the masses in a 1up 1down back to back needed that much storage being a) poor, b) "hand to mouth" existence and all that?
This cellar was built as the building is on a slope.The cellar forms part of what I call "the foundations". The other back to back adjacent to it has a lower ground floor instead of a "cellar" - wonder what the masses did if they lived there? die of listeria?
whitewash copes well to a point
No I don;t believe ground conditions could be changed that much by lining a cellar. Visible damp and mould may appear but only due to low/no evaporation through crap ventilation. "Running water" appearing is somewhat hysterical.
the high tech one is called tanking Harry.
Jim K
If you are not changing anything structurally .. then I would say Building Regs do not apply. Just do it.
What could apply is Planning ... if there is a material change of use of a room from one type to another.
No-Habitable to habitable, commercial to residential, conservatory to permanent living space etc.
You might say that, but you would be wrong.
No, planning only applies to change of use and appearance.
Depends.
Is the cellar heated? If so;
-will there be any change to the accommodation (i.e., are you changing it from not habitable to habitable), or
-if it's already habitable, then will you be making it worse than before?
The answers are: if unheated, then no. If heated, then strictly speaking, yes, as a renovation of a thermal element.
If you're creating habitable rooms down there, then you should really think about proper tanking. Even if not, most cellars to pre-war properties in my experience were nothing more than the sub-floor void, and ventilated to prevent mould growth, often with an open gully in the floor to drain away all the rain and ground water that would come in. That it was a good space to have a scullery or a cold store was probably co-incidental.
If you stop the water from evaporating, it will build up in the ground. This may or may not be a problem, no one predict/ say for sure.
There are ways of dealing with the problem other than tanking which can fail.
snip
I was round a mate's c.1900 house the other week. He's celotexed the cellar ceiling and lagged the walls with what looks like bubble wrap, with the flat bit facing out. You can see the moisture through this material, and it kind of wicks/falls down this material to the floor. He left this for a year or two to see what happened.
In the event, minor damp round the edges of the cellar - so he just painted the flagstones, doing without any sump etc. Looks very tidy. Slightly damp - you wouldn't want to store books down there. But fine for a (draughty) workshop.
I suppose my concern is bricks remaining in that saturated state - but I can't think it's much worse than before.
Rob
Interesting pair of articles currently featured on the front page of the Independent on Sunday and linked to here:
In a similar vein, and getting back to the point of this discussion, Victorian house builders were not primitive idiots: they were amongst the finest engineers this country has known and, in the context of this specific matter, with the exception of situations where a known waterproof barrier has failed over time, if a cellar is damp or gets flooded from time to time, it's wise to assume that it was designed from the outset to do that for reasons that, more than one hundred years later, we may know nothing about.
We twenty-first century constructors are very good at applying brute force solutions to the problems we perceive but unless we can see the whole picture there is always the risk of unintended consequences - such as the tower block fire-traps referenced above.
Nick
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