Hey everyone,

Have yet another off topic question, the garage with the house that we are renting has finally had a new roof put on it,

but unfortunatly I have noticed that what i thought was water coming through the roof is water ingress from the outside. The neighbours garden floods quite easily which the garage backs on too.

So is there any way to seal the garage? obviously cheaply as there is no point in spending money on something that isn't mine!

My current plan is to use a laboratory gravimetric diluter (i work for a laboratory supplier) and use it to pump the water out and down a drain. not sure how well it wil work and it will never completely dry.

I would like to do something as my dads sprite is stored there as are bits from my car and its the perfect condensation trap at the mo.

Any ideas would be great

One thing you could do is put a gulley all round the garage draining into a sump with a water-activated pump into the drains.

That would deal with any high-water situations as well as a high water table (up to a point)...

£35 from machine mart (incl float switch)

[Edited on 9/12/08 by BenB]

i've seen that setup used effectively in someones basement!

Might be possible just to use any slope to channel water away. I have this same problem in my garage. Doesnt help that the block paving is level with the floor of the garage so there is no way of channeling the water away short of taking blocks out.

Only sure fire way is to remove the water source. If their garden is flooding above your dpc then i guess you need a gulley between garage and garden and a way for the water to flow away easily.

I had an issue a while back with water coming through wall. Turned out to be a faulty gutter dropping water between 2 garages, no where to flow so came through wall (also into neighbours). Repaired gutter and all was well.


Ive also dug a trench in front of a wall and installed a land drain into a soakaway which was fairly cheap and effective - just a bit of hard labour digging.

The best solution I can think of is for you to give me your saab 96 ^__^

There's a 2 stroke on ebay at the moment. DO WANT

dig a small ditch round the outside of the garage till its below the floor level and channel it away

I will have to see if i can dig a channal around the garage, there is not much space tho!

You wouldn't want my 96, its in bits strewn across my garage, my loft, my parents drive and garage.

I would love a 2 stroke bull nose but they are hard to come by. even better would be a 93 but thats even rarer!

my last garage use to flood in heavy rain till half the floor was and inch deep, very very annoying so I got a pick and under cut right round including at the door (where most of the water was coming in) and it was amazing the difference as even the floor dried out (no damp proofing and use to make things rust) it was a very narrow channel only about 6 inchs deep but made all the difference

hmmmmmm might just do that, cut a channel with a pick from the corner where its worse to the drain which i hope isn't blocked outside!

will see if my parents have a pick tomorrow, at least thats the side of the garage thats easy to access.

I'm in the process of converting my garage into a house. The back waal is a meter below the level of the pub car park behind the garage and there was always a huge damp patch along the back of the garage. The water would trickle in whenever there was a bit of rain. I considered all sorts including digging along the outside of the wall an dropping a soakaway drain or tanking the wall. My builder however had a better plan. He rendered the bottom of the wall to about 600mm above the level of the carpark and mixed some sort of DPC admix into the render. It has dried as hard as bell metal and is as dry as a bone!!
It would have cost me a days worth of builders labour and a few quid for the materials.

Probaby used tanking mix in the cement.

I live in basement flat so unfortuantely am only to au fait with DPM, tanking and pumps in sumps

It might be worth taking legal advice on this one.

I am under the impression you cannot drain water from your land onto a neighbours property.

If there run off from their land is damaging your property, they should do something about it.
Thereare certainly laws relating to drainage of land.

Check with the council, or water board or even citizens advice.

Its worth checking. via Citizens Advice first, as they are the cheapest!