French Drain - success?

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tommygirl

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Sorry if this has been asked before - have searched but found nothing.
I was wondering if anyone has had any success with French Drains.

Basically we have a small cottage that we bought in 2006 but it is very damp and there is a lot of condensation. It was built in 1939 and is solid concrete. There are aluminium windows and doors. There were no vents so we bored vents in but the damp is still there.

Also when we moved in, we re-plastered an area and the wooden sticks (sorry don't know the technical term!) behind the plasterboard were rotten so we are thinking it is rising damp. We also lifted some of the laminate flooring as we were thinking of replacing it but the floor is damp underneath. It was suggested to us that we dig a trench around the house and that should sort the damp problem. I had visions of big trench and needing a moate and drawbridge but having looked into it more it would not look that bad and if it worked..............

We were thinking of extending but a friend who is an architect said that the original cottage wouldn't be worth keeping. THat would make it a very very expensive site we bought. Has anyone tried this or did the work for someone. How successful is it - could you ever sort the problems completely and what would the approx cost be - cottage is about 900 sq ft. which includes approx 400 sq ft flat-roof extension.
Thanks for advise
Tommygirl
 
Hi in a similar position to yourself. our agent house was built 1930 and the bedrooms are extremely damp, no vents . However, we did replace the alluminium windows and almost overnight most of the condensation has gone!, we will finish off by boring vents though the three foot thick walls and that should do it. I would definitely look into replacing the windows before doing anything.
 
A french drain would only take the surface water from around the house, if done properly. A part of your problem is more than likely there is no waterproof membrane beneath your floor and the damp could be rising from the ground directly under the house. Solving this would be expensive - Digging out all the floors, etc. Instead of trying various expensive options yourself which might not work its probably best to get an engineer out to assess the situation.
 
There are a few previous threads on this topic, including this and this. The search facility will locate the others.
Leo
 
Thanks to everyone for your replies. The flat-roof extension needs to go anyway at some stage and just wondering if the original house is worth keeping. Incidentally at the back of the house (the flat-roof extension) - you can see the damp-proof course and it is well below the patio and ground level at the side of the house. We would have expected the surveyor to spot this and point it out - from what I read elsewhere however, we would have no come-back there.
Don't really know what to do but I suppose get someone out to have a look - what kind of an engineer would you get out?
Thanks
Tommygirl
 
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