# Garage water ingress :-(



## yetizone (Jun 25, 2008)

Hey Guys, now that the bad weather is hitting hard, I've discovered a few problems with the garage attached to the new house  Could you please take a look at the following pix and anyone with any building knowledge please suggest a fix or two 

Question 1: What sort of weatherboard would I need to stop this happening? When the wind blows heavy rain towards the front of the garage, we get this sort of pooling inside, stretching back a good couple of feet. Not ideal when the electricity main is only another foot or so away!










Question 2: When it rains heavily I'm getting water ingress where the wall meets the floor. The roof joists are bone dry, as are the walls so all ok there. This is towards the back of the garage, well away from doors. The outside path is a little uneven and the fall of the path pools water next to the outside garage wall in places. I'm assuming this is the culprit? I'm guessing its not the internal drain as that runs diagonally across the garage to the manhole outside the front of the garage door. Anyone had any experience of this?



















Any suggestions / comments welcome :thumb:


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## uruk hai (Apr 5, 2009)

Something like this might help the problem

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/39390...l/Weather-Stop-Garage-Floor-Door-Seal-Kit-8ft

Or

http://www.garagedoors-sw.com/store...estic-grade-rubber-floor/showitemWSDGRFS.aspx

What I did on mine was get a strip of rubber and stick it to the inside of the door and it was about an inch too long so when I close the door the flap folds out and slopes away from the bottom of the door as it rubs against the floor, it did the trick for me, stops all the leaves to !

The set up I've got is a bit like this.

http://www.focusdiy.co.uk/RubberGarageDoorSeal-2x1250mmAluminium193484?category=draughtproofing


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## Renmure (Jan 18, 2007)

I cured a similar problem with my garage doors with something similar to the ideas above.

This stuff from eBay came with the adhesive to fix it to the conrete floor.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GARAGE-DOOR-P...t=UK_Home_Garden_Doors_LE&hash=item5884b501d1


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## yetizone (Jun 25, 2008)

Cheers guys, that's great. Will have a look at these options and then decide. Good to see that their are some specific kits available for the job in hand. :thumb:


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## SteveOC (May 26, 2007)

Renmure said:


> I cured a similar problem with my garage doors with something similar to the ideas above.
> 
> This stuff from eBay came with the adhesive to fix it to the conrete floor.
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GARAGE-DOOR-P...t=UK_Home_Garden_Doors_LE&hash=item5884b501d1


I have something similar from the same eBay seller - minus the yellow strip - and also something attached to the bottom of the door (that didn't work), so that should sort the door out.

I'd be more concerned about the other problem. I assume that you have checked that all external areas are at least two brick courses below the DPC/DPM?

Steve O.


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## quattrogmbh (May 15, 2007)

If it's new build, I thought there were building regs which stipulated a strip drain in front of garage doors??

As for the other problem, agree that would seem to be more fundamental. 

Are you still within the Snag period?


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## yetizone (Jun 25, 2008)

Yes - I'm rather worried about the damp coming in in the corner of the wall and floor. It only happens when it rains heavily, no residual damp present when the weather is dry as the area seems to dry out pretty quickly. I can see some sort of DPC present, but whether its correctly placed or perforated - not sure as I aint no builder 

The house is a 1968 build, so well out of warranty I'm afraid 

Here's a close up piccie of the affected area (after todays horrendous rain) and some sort of membrane can be seen tow brick layers up from the floor.


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## uruk hai (Apr 5, 2009)

I would think that the membrane is the damp proof barrier and I'm guessing that its broken down over the years as the damp shouldnt be coming in through the damp proof course. I know you can get or have done damp proof course injection but I dont know anything about it.

I'm guessing it might be products along the lines of these ?

http://www.kingfisheruk.com/shop.php?subpage=damp_proof_injection

There must be a builder on here who could advise or even do the job for you ?


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## radiotj (Apr 24, 2010)

Hello there, I think you may have water making its way under the floor slab.
The concrete floor slab is laid on a membrane and it looks as though the water ingress at the front door is making its way under the slab.
You have to deal with this at the source and collect the water at the front on the driveway into a soakaway.
You can fit a weatherstrip on the bottom of the door but that wont stop the water going under the slab.
Go and hire a Kango and dig the corner of the floor out in the picture to see how wet it is underneath because even if it stops raining for a week the water will still remain under the slab.
You have to deal with this or you will continually have a wet/damp garage, not nice, believe me.
HTH.


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## Ross (Apr 25, 2007)

Yeti is the drive up to the door sloping away from it?


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## yetizone (Jun 25, 2008)

Ross said:


> Yeti is the drive up to the door sloping away from it?


Hi folks, sorry for the delay, been a frantic few days with work all told :wall:

-

Hi Ross, I'd say the drive is level, so with a strong wind behind the rain the water just gets under the door. So, I'm going to order a weather board to sit under the door itself and that should cure the problem temporarily. When we get the drive done we'll create a proper fall or incorporate a grid drain of some sort at the front of the garage.

-

We have a paving guy coming around tonight to have a look at the path next to where the water is getting in the side of the garage, hopefully he can stop the pooling outside, this will help of course. Then we can turn attention to water proofing properly. :thumb:


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## kenny-c (Oct 5, 2009)

Keep us up to date as got the same problem


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## rich1880 (May 26, 2010)

Hi

I cant comment on the problem with the door but I can with the water seaping where the wall meets the floor. Is the outside ground level above your floor level? I have had a similar problem but the water was coming through the bricks, I used 'tanking slurrey' which is what is used in basements, its a power you mix with water and then brush onto the walls, going aprox 1m up and the floor aprox 50cm into the garage. Once dried you can paint over it. I then rendered the internal walls in the garage with a additive into the mix which also acts as a waterproof barrier.

You have a dpc which can be seen but you may not have a damp proof membrane in your floor slab, this is not uncommon. Your dpc will stop the damp going higher, it should have ideally been located a couple of bricks further down and this is adding to the problem. 

I would try the tanking method, its about £70 a bag and you can do it yourself, I think that will sort it out, if not see if water or soil is itting against your garage wall, if it is, dig it back. lastly take up a small section of the damp floor and see if there is a pipe leaking, if not you could put a piece of visqueen and pour concrete over the top.

I intend to dig back the soil that is against the garage next year to solve the problem for good. Hope that helps,


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## yetizone (Jun 25, 2008)

Update: Had a builder come round last night and he reckons (after close scrutiny) that the problem lies with the single width layer of bricks on the outer wall of the garage being built directly onto the concrete garage slab, where some of the mortar has crumbled slightly over time. His fix would be a bit of repointing and then, reworking of the concrete edge, creating a rain channel next to the slabs. Very simple from what he said. So that's the next try. Builder booked in to do it this Saturday morning. 

Also advised a couple of coats of Thompsons Water Seal on top when done.

Will post up before and after pix when complete. :thumb:


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## jonezy (Sep 30, 2008)

i was going to say i could pop up one weekend and have a look, im not a builder but im an architectural technician,(based in liverpool) so could take a look, but see how the builder gets on, if the fix works great if not, it could be something else really simple as the water is soaking in below the dpc level... you mention that the bricks are laid ontop of the slab, ideally the outer leaf of brickwork should drop past the slab... dependant on the type of constrcution used back in the 60s/70s


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## yetizone (Jun 25, 2008)

Thanks for the offer Jonezy, very much appreciated indeed. I'll see how the builder chap gets on this weekend and then go from there. Fingers crossed it will be a quick fix as the garage makeover has slowed a pace as a result  At least it gives me to time get on with the painting of the ceiling and joists I guess - every cloud etc


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## dr-x (Jul 31, 2010)

Had the same problem with my last house/ Garage you can forget a problem with your DPC as these are designed to stop rising damp which you dont have, and the water is coming in below the DPC, My guess is that the outside of that wall will be holding water, in my case I had a single block garage and a 6" gap and then a retaining wall for the garden which was about 3ft tall, over the years the gap filled up with rubish and began to hold/pool water, as concrete is pourous over a few hours it would track through the block, It was amazing how much would pass through the wall. All I had to do was clean out the gap between the garage and garden wall and it was cured.


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## P4ULT (Apr 6, 2007)

i had the same problem as you a put aco drain in to a soakaway or you could connect it to a drain. hth as it solved my problem once and for all.


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## sfs (Oct 26, 2009)

Yeah, soakway along that side of the wall would solve it or reduce the levels outside. At the most extreme you could tank up to the DPC, insulate and pour a 75mm slab with chicken mesh running through it to stop any cracking.


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## JonF (Mar 4, 2009)

yetizone said:


> Yes - I'm rather worried about the damp coming in in the corner of the wall and floor. It only happens when it rains heavily, no residual damp present when the weather is dry as the area seems to dry out pretty quickly. I can see some sort of DPC present, but whether its correctly placed or perforated - not sure as I aint no builder
> 
> The house is a 1968 build, so well out of warranty I'm afraid
> 
> Here's a close up piccie of the affected area (after todays horrendous rain) and some sort of membrane can be seen tow brick layers up from the floor.


I have exactly the same problem as this on my garage. The problem is the DPC is 2 brick courses above the garage floor level. Under normal conditions its not a problem but in heavy rain conditions the damp rises. 
Check outside to see if the level of soil is higher than the DPC layer or garage floor level. If it is then remove it away from the garage wall to let it dry out you should have 2 clear courses of bricks up to the DPC.
Its not a solution but it helps. I had our house builders back to ours and they recon everything is right to regs etc for the garage


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