www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

We were unfortunately involved in the recent floods in Cockermouth with our house on the riverside being flooded to a depth of over 5 feet. Before the river reached this height, water poured in from our next door's workshop through the lime mortar pointing. We are still drying out but planning for the future and would like to seal the party wall in some way. The floor is of concrete with a membrane embedded. The buildings are about 200 years old with stone and brick walls of a rather haphazard nature.
We don't want to seal in damp but will need some better protection through the walls.

Any ideas?

I'm not sure there is an option other than lime mortar to alow your walls to breath. You could prop and remove, then re-build in a cement based mortar, but in my experiance if you 'seal' a lime based wall with a cementuous mortar, you get problems down the line.

Not the answer you were hoping for I know, and others may add something/disagree.

Maybe I don't understand what you're trying to achieve. Is the idea to stop water coming through next time there's a bad flood? Because no ammount of re-pointing is likely to affect that.

Could you post some pics of the wall?

I take it the wall is internal on both sides?

Sorry to answer questions with more questions. And I'm sorry to hear about your house and hope all returns to normal for you as soon as possible.

you could tank it...

http://www.safeguardeurope.com/applicat ... 4wodx0iCIA

The only way you would keep the water out is to build a bunded wall , sufficiently strong enough to hold the weight of water, you would be talking swimming pool quality.

I've seen water lift a 5foot thick concrete slab.

Another more practical solution, if it was/is likely to be a regular problem, is to build a wall around the properties, and make provisions to barricade the entrances with something like railway sleepers, and sandbags. A sort of removable sluice gate.

this might sound silly but what if op were to tank the neighbours side of the wall.... making his house the swimming pool therefore the water is pushing the tanking into the wall as opposed to away from the wall...
theres positive and negative tanking...

cwplastering wrote:this might sound silly but what if op were to tank the neighbours side of the wall.... making his house the swimming pool therefore the water is pushing the tanking into the wall as opposed to away from the wall...
theres positive and negative tanking...

That would work, but the weight would probably take the wall out.

hmm how about tanking up to say 2 or three feet and class anything above that as unviable to protect against?
might just be the case that its only a shallow flood and it would at least protect the carpets?
say its a solid 9" wall... should be pretty robust... 4" single skins no good though i suppose.
anything over that is gonna come through the windows anyway... whether the door is sealed or not...

Thanks to you all for the suggestions. I think that it would be best to re-point with lime mortar on both sides (my neighbour is happy with this) and concentrate on the flood defences around the building. Everyone I have spoken to warns against trying to tank the area. As most folk say, there is nothing you can do about 5 ft of fast moving water, flood tolerance is the way forward. The external walls are exposed stone so we will leave, some internals are stud walls and the insurers have agreed to replace with sand and cement rendered blockwork.

Interestingly, we moved back in with the dryers etc before stripping out work took place and it is drying out well. Looking at the desolation of Cockermouth, I wonder how much of the complete stripping out was necessary........ It is obviously for ease of re-instatement but these buildings are all around 200 years old and must have flooded several times.