Advice on garage leaking

Submitted by dafp123 t3_xwiz4b in DIY

So I've spent some money on trying to get my garage sorted as an office.

It got to the point where I was ready to get insulation in, board and plaster. Recently with the weather being so bad and the rain coming down the area near the door has just started to leak drastically. Water is literally getting through and causing puddles.

https://imgur.com/gallery/Tkg2vSd

See three pictures there of the door and both sides of it. The other side of that door is our garden, which is at a higher level to the floor in the garage (less than 1ft). Running along the side of the garage are aco drains which I recently had fitted, to attempt to prevent this from happening, however, they're obviously not solving the problem completely.

When checking the door area and using a hose pipe on the door the water begins to come through the bottom of the wall under the door, I don't know if the water is coming through anywhere else, or just there. The amount of water on each side of the door is making me think under my door isn't the only problem.

My plan was to get a kango and see what it looks like under the door to see if I could find out exaclty where the water is coming through.

I really don't know what else to attempt, obviously can't continue the work until this is sorted.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Vanhydra t1_ir6p1s2 wrote

I can't help you but I wish you good luck!

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[deleted] t1_ir6w74p wrote

As long as the “garden” soil is higher than the garage floor is then you will have water leaks. It’s pretty clear the outside wall of the garage is not sealed at the wall/concrete slab joint. The fix will be tough. On the outside area around the wall dig down about a foot past the walk/slab joint. Use a waterproof membrane with waterproof cement to seal the wall/slab joint on the outside. Fill the the trench with gravel and grade the level of the trench so that the water will drain away from the garage. Any other way you can grade the level of the garden water drainage away from the garage area would be helpful as well. This will always be an issue since the area around the garage is higher than the level of the garage slab.

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dafp123 OP t1_ir6xmr1 wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#38,839)

Thanks for that, so do you recommend pulling up the aco drains which were installed recently and doing as you say? Would you recommend getting rid of the acos? Only thing is I have a drainpipe going into the aco drain at the moment

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anon702170 t1_ir785bi wrote

What's the height differential between the garden surface and the garage floor? Acco drains will intercept surface water, but not groundwater. If you removed the drains, the soil underneath is still wet. The weight of this wet soil creates hydrostatic pressure which squeezes the water into nearby structures. Any crack is an easy path for water ingress, but concrete itself is porous so a couple of feet of wet soil will create enough pressure to cause penetration.

Did you install sill plate gasket under the framing's bottom plate?

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Material_Community18 t1_ir8170u wrote

Keeping below-grade living space dry requires creating dry air space next to the foundation well below the floor level. Remember that water can come up from below as well as down from above.

You will need to excavate and add drainage against the outside of the foundation that can carry the water away faster than it can rise from below or percolate from above.

Here’s a good example: https://youtu.be/hfUc4oIVsrY

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natchgreyes t1_ir83115 wrote

Replying to dafp123 (#38,900)

Not original poster, but agree completely with the solution posted. To add to this, the fundamental problem is that the garden soil will always hold water and it will slowly leech through the concrete, if you can't seal it. You need to create a space between the concrete and the soil in order for the water to flow properly - hence the gravel solution. The only thing that I would add is that you may want to place landscaping cloth on the boundary between the gravel and soil, and consider whether a french drain would be an appropriate install. Please note that, you don't need to get a french drain wrapped in landscaping cloth as the purpose of the cloth is to keep the soil separate from the drain...and that's what the gravel is for...and you don't want soil getting into the gravel (otherwise you've just created New England's soil) hence the proper place for the cloth is between the gravel and soil.

The acos can be useful for the roof's dripline, if you don't have properly functioning gutters or if you can't regrade the soil and the water is pooling on the surface at the building.

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