Hi all, we had a power cut over christmas and called out an electrician after the power would not come back on and kept tripping. he checked the sockets and all was ok. he then looked under the circuit board and noticed it was wet. i looked under the floor and found 2 inches of water, i looked in another place and found it was across the whole house.
i have spent the last week sucking it out with a wet vac and have got over 500 litres out at least. i checked wth my neighbours both sides and found their houses were dry. i then managed to get in touch with the previous occupants who had a problem once when the waste pipe cracked outside under the floor and leaked into the house. i also contacted the water board and did some checks by turning off the stop cock and checking the water meter then turning back on and checking again after a while, the meter did not move. i then managed to crawl under the floor. The house is a 1930 semi detached and has a gap of around 700mm from the floorboards, to the concrete floor. i cleared up the last of the water and then found an area the size of my fist where there was no concrete, and a drop of around 100mm. this area would not drain of water and continued to fill from the bottom when i vacuumed it. i am now pretty certain this is where the water is coming from. underneath is now dry but there is nothing to stop it coming back when this hole decides to emit more water.
this area is in my middle room which is 1 metre from the side of the house and is nearly in line with where the waste pipe comes down from the uppper and lower bathrooms. i have checked the water and do not believe it to be waste water, it has a slight stale smell and the previous occupants who had the waste leak said the smell was very bad.
i am now unsure of what to do, there are several things i think may be the cause, my back garden is absolutely sodden. i have only been in the house two years but i have never had a garden like this, there is puddles everywhere and the water doesnt drain away.my garden is almost completely grass. this leads me to believe it is the water table.
my air bricks are also very low, some are only an inch above ground level, with all the rain we have had i thought maybe they had let the water in.
as previously said, the waste pipe may have cracked again at the u bend underground.
although my neighbours houses are all dry their gardens are all the same as ours and some have taken the steps to add gravel to much of the garden or completely remove the grass and put pavers down.
does anyone ave any ideas, or has anyone got any experience with something similar?
