woodsmith wrote on Jan 20th, 2021, 9:15am:Are you saying that your roof comes down toward your neighbour and there is guttering along this edge which will more or less fill the gap between the two houses? If so that doesn’t seem right and you should definitely go to Building Control and get them to look at this. I assume your neighbour didn’t need planning approval for this otherwise this could have been sorted at an earlier stage.
As for mortar getting into the cavity, good brickies are used to keeping the cavity clean to prevent damp bridging.
You may be able to dig the ground down between the two houses prior to building to help to keep damp away from your wall or replace any soil with 10mm gravel which will aid drainage.
You can’t be too careful with damp problems, and it’s definitely worth it, for both you and your neighbour, to get this sorted before any building work starts.
Yep, that is more or less what I'm saying. I'll try to clarify further....I live in a terraced house on a steepish hill. Nextdoor's house is uphill of me, hence his house and backyard are approx 18 - 24" higher than mine, as will the proposed 2 storey xtension. His new xtension roof will be higher than mine, which means a conventional gutter on my xtension roof will more or less butt up against his new xtension wall. Along with gutters getting blocked and possibie overflow during heavy rain, which is happening more frequently these days, I won't be able to renew the gutter when needed as there will be no room to work.
I'm no buider obviously, but I'm thinking of some sort of flashing or whatever to cover the top of the gap. As double insurance, I'm thinking of clearing a couple of inches of dirt along the bottom of the gap, as you mentioned, and channeling any water that gets in along a plastic or earthenware gutter into a nearby drain in my backyard. I'm thinking of bedding the gutter into a layer of cement, which will cover the whole of the bottom of the gap. Making sure to stay below the dampcourse of my xtension, which has a cavity wall by the way. I'm willing to pay for that secondary preventative providing the top of the gap is sorted to my satisfaction. Remembering that my neighbours backyard is also 18" - 24" higher than the floor of my xtension, but there is a 9" gap between their backyard along the entire length of my xtension. My builder made sure of this when he built my xtension many years ago. He prevented rainwater entering by capping off the top of the gap with a single course of house bricks and capping stones cut to suit to prevent rain water entering. A good job he made of it too until my neighbour kindly decided to remove the end capping stone and insert a downpipe from his main roof down into the gap, which caused me a whole lot of damp problems before I eventually found outwhat he'd done!
As you can see it's all a bit complicated and not easy to explain but I hope you get the picture? Wouldn't mind knowing if you think of my two methods of rainwater prevention are feasable?? I'm old enough (70 years) to have learned not to leave anything to chance, so as you suggested I have been in touch with building control both by email and later by phone. I have to phone back next week. Not seen my neighbour yet but will have a chat when I bump into him.
How on earth does the local authority allow plans through when they are clearly not detailed enough? Compared to the plans drawn up for my xtension, my neighbours look as if they are meant for a dolls house.
Thanks for your advice and time, tis much appreciated.
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Damp prevention from adjacent propert? (Read 6576 times)
