basement

Before you read on.. join me in laughter at my awful attempt of a “drawing” obviously my architectural skills are flawless. I hope this makes sense. It does in my head but that’s not always a helpful thing Initially we were repairing a wall going down into the basement. The wall has a 2...

Morning all. First post. Apologies if this is in the wrong place, i couldn't see anything specific for this issue. I recently moved into a back to back terrace. The basement is painted brick walls and concrete floor and consists of a large room and two smaller ones. The previous occupant...

Hi everyone. I'm hoping someone could give me a bit of advice. I want to create a small opening (no wider than a door's width) in the cellar's internal brick wall. The reason for this is because currently there is no access to the suspended floor below and I want to access it so that it's so...

Hi all, I have a basement that I want to use for storage. I’ve put down sub base and sand and visqueen DPM. Plan was to pour concrete slab but no concrete companies round here will pump 1m3 as they all have 2-4m3 minimum orders. I don’t have anywhere to mix up that much concrete myself so...

Hi, Asking on behalf of my mother.. Her 1930s house has an air raid shelter underneath the back lounge. There is even a small trapdoor under the lounge carpet and a sloped wall so the occupants could slide into the shelter in an emergency (never tried the slide myself as it is steep!) There is...

Hi All, I'm looking for some advice on what to do about the old plaster and metal lath in my basement (Victorian ground floor flat in London). For some background, there was previously drywall in the basement and the paper on it had gone extremely mouldy. I've been researching a lot about...

Hi all First post here. I've searched around everywhere for someone with a similar set up to my place and found nothing so had to ask for myself. I have a ground floor flat of a converted pub built circa 1905 and converted in the mid 90's. It's solid brick wall construction, single glazed...

Hi, The basement floor in my house seems to be half finished. Literally half of the floor looks like a thin layer of cement that has been poured over a plastic sheet which was on a bed of sand (with the dirt floor underneath the sand). The other half of the basement is just sand. I don't know...

I have a Victorian property with a basement that is becoming damper over time. One easy fix is to add more ventilation through our coal Chute. Currently, the chute is covered by a square metal cover that can be lifted off the hole in the ground just outside our kitchen window to access the...

Hi - old house , semi, cellars , in town with lots of hills . Water pooling on basement floor after it rains . One part of the wall only at front of house , external wall adjacent to a path down the side of house. Path paved as is front garden .Happens when it rains . Generally always damp at...

Hi all, I recently purchased a two bed Victorian house that spans three floors. At the ground floor you enter directly into the front room and you walk through the front room to the dining room, where you can access the stairs down to the cellar which has been converted into the kitchen and...

Hi, Thought I'd post here and get some advice. We have an old house (1908) and the basement was converted when we moved in (tanked and has pasterboard walls). This is now being used as my office so I decided to get the ventilation improved. The company quoted for a PIV so we went ahead with...

Morning all. Looking for some guidance on a property I’m considering purchasing. There are damp mould spots along the the bottom of an external wall, just above the skirting board. We suspect this level with the height of the pavement outside. I’ve seen suggestions online that if this is above...

Hi Folks, I as ever need a little guidance to enclosing the exterior steps to my basement. There was a rickety roof with fencing panels for the sides, the roof has rotted and in a race I pulled it all down before it fell down, well it could have been a dead heat. I do not know where to start and...

Hi All I'm currently having the existing basement of my Edwardian semi-detached property made more 'user friendly' via the installation of a proprietary (Triton) cavity drain system, plaster board/plaster walls & ceilings & a wooden floor. One of the main tasks is to 'hide' the myriad of...

Hi, I did have an account on here a few years back but can't login.. So I'm converting our basement into the babies future playroom but I'm stuck on floor choice. My current substrate is the original brick type floor which was possibly laid when the house was built c.1870. My main goal is to...

Hi there, We're in the process of slightly lowering our basement floor (nothing drastic like underpinning, just the remove of the cracked slab and some substrate and relaying it slightly lower with insulation and DPM, all based on a structural engineer's report and going 300mm further down the...

Hi, I have a built up of drainage smell in the basement where we us to have are old toilet drainage before, basically the old drainage is no longer in use and still has water standing, its under the bay window in the basement. I can access it by removing a few bricks from inside the basement as...

So, after starting a job today it soon turned into something else so thought I'd get the views of people on here. I live in a 1840's stone built end terrace. The previous owner has converted the basement but it leaks and the walls are often damp so it clearly hasn't worked. I'd love to rip...

Hi there, new to this forum and grateful in advance for any advice. Have a property that used to be a pub, so has a large cellar/basement, and looking to make the space a bit more usable by tanking the walls and floor to create a space for storage that's a bit dryer. The walls had a layer of...