# Damp Carpet (Basement-ish)



## ardandy (Aug 18, 2006)

Basically the cinema room I made is 2/3rds below the surface on one wall (house on a slight slope). We only use this room once every week or so, literally for just film watching, as it's behind the integral garage. There is no heating in this room (we use a fan heater whenever we watch anything as I didn't see the point in heating a room that might not be used for 2 weeks).

This room has been fine for nearly 18 months until we had that huge amount of rain in a few days about a week or so ago. I'm not anticipating this been a regular occurrence but it may happen once every year or 2.

There is the original laminate underneath the carpet (with underlay or course)
The wall to the right in the pic is the one effected. Well, the wall is fine, it's the carpet that was damp, and of course the underlay which at present is peeled back. The damp parts comes out 2-3 foot from the wall edge so it cannot be coming up through the concrete. The wall itself (at this side anyway) is dry too so its like its coming from where the wall meets the floor edge.

What I'm wanting to know is whats the best longer term solution. It's never going to be 'tanked' at whatever high cost that would be, especially given it's minimal room use so if I proceed with the assumption this will be a 1-2 yearly thing which option do you think will be best?

1, Buy a decent humidifier for circa £150
2, Do what I'm doing now, peel back carpet where damp and point the fan heater at it until bone dry
3, Install a radiator as part of c/h system (boiler is in garage in next room so should be easy).
4, But an electric oil filled radiator (same idea as c/h rad I guess).

Typically the roof isn't damp or anything, it's just when we get an immense amount of rain.


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## HEADPHONES (Jan 1, 2008)

I had a very similar problem few months back.
Water was very slowly trickling right in the corner where two walls met the floor.
The trickle was clearly visable on peeling back the carpet and underlay.
No mains pipes near here so it was water deffo from outside.
Builder friend lifted the concrete slabs that met the outside wall where the leak was and there was a broken part in the wall where the old buider worked on the external waste pipe here.
He patched it up and put everything back and hey presto....dry.
He took about 1-2 hours and only dug down about 7 inches to find the hole.
Hope yours is as easy to fix.


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## ardandy (Aug 18, 2006)

No obvious leak for us unfortunately. I'm guessing it might be ground water rising? Although the other half of the house (same wall) isn't affected?


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## HEADPHONES (Jan 1, 2008)

.

mine looked like this


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## ardandy (Aug 18, 2006)

Just getting pictures of cars and a naked guys bum?


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## Clancy (Jul 21, 2013)

Just wrote out a huge reply and my phone decided to crash the tab as I sent it, typical 

Basically I would pull back the carpet and lift the laminate on that area. Get it dry then get a damp proofing agent on as much of whatever you can, put it back to normal and the get some heat in the room 

I know we it's annoying heating a room barely used but the cost will realistically be minimal. The cold surfaces will be inviting damp onto them 

Underground rooms are always a nightmare for damp infiltration, especially if you don't know exactly how it was constructed. The smallest of holes to a membrane or missed detail can cause infiltration if the ground is completely saturated like it s this time of year


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## ardandy (Aug 18, 2006)

I'm drying it out as we speak. 

radiator or dehumidifier?


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## HEADPHONES (Jan 1, 2008)

ardandy said:


> Just getting pictures of cars and a naked guys bum?


oops.....just fixed that for you
Just TO CLEAR MY NAME...the naked man was a guy arrested in HK for detailing IN THE BUFF that I posted up a while back......I have no general interest in naked men :lol:


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## packard (Jun 8, 2009)

Whatever you do, I'd but a dehumidifier In, if you work at places with a lot of people or have a large number of mates ask to borrow the more the merrier, most people buy them and use them ad hoc, look at all of the, on eBay and gumtree for sale.


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## Clancy (Jul 21, 2013)

ardandy said:


> I'm drying it out as we speak.
> 
> radiator or dehumidifier?


Both would be good, get a quote on a radiator and see if it's reasonable to have one put in

Dehumidifier you can get for peanuts second hand, I bought one that looked brand new for 99p on eBay


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## ardandy (Aug 18, 2006)

As this is probably a recurring thing I don't mind buying one. Will check ebay though.


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## ardandy (Aug 18, 2006)

Seems to be drying out much quicker since I removed the underlay and hung it in the garage. No new water since then either even though we've had a fair bit of rain these past 2 days.


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