Scottish Elises

Not really sure what to do with my garage. The walls are porous leading to the garage often having a damp floor (tbh, I'd blamed the coolant system on the Lotus for leaking for a while...!!)

The problem is that the back, and most of both side walls are essentially underground, so the exterior of the wall is impossible to reach without some major excavation..

Does anyone know of an effective way to treat the concrete from the inside? Has anyone faces a similar problem?

Cheers,
Chris

You could use a waterproof render. Its not cheap.

http://www.fosroc.com/DownLoadSite/NewDownloadSite.aspx#

http://gbr.sika.com/en/solutions_produc ... reeds.html

You definitely sure it's not the roof leaking?

Even if waterproofed from the inside, will the damp concrete not deteriorate over time and loose it's structural integrity?

If it hasnt had damp course put in when being built then it will just keep coming back -

You could use something like this - http://www.floorpaintexpress.co.uk/damp ... tment.html in the meantime?

Not sure if there was damp course used at build, not even sure when it was built..!

rossybee wrote:You definitely sure it's not the roof leaking?

Yep, roof has a strange plastic like sheet thing on it that is nice and leak free. You can see / feel the water in the concrete of the walls.

Dominic wrote:Even if waterproofed from the inside, will the damp concrete not deteriorate over time and loose it's structural integrity?

This is part of my worry, I'm a little concerned that one of the damp stopping paints will create a barrier and simply increase the pressure on the wall too (not sure if that'd happen of course..), however, surely that only leads me to knocking the thing down and rebuilding anyway, so might as well try one of these options...

I presume no one has experience of this sort of issue?

We have a stairwell that has started leaking again. We repaired a broken drain and thought that was it.

We may have to tank the inside and run a drain on the inside of the building. It gets expensive quickly.

You would probably need to get the walls tanked to prevent water coming through. I had a similar issue with a house a number of years ago and tanking solves the visible problem but doesnt tackle the source which will always be there.

As Nizzy said it may get expensive - pull down and start agin might be a cheaper option for a garage?

Chris, I deal with stuff like this quite regularly and can offer some guidance with more information...I'll PM you my number if you like- easier to have a chat than type lots on here! (surveying/architecture is my line)

Bert