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oscarlet

Damp between two foundations

oscarlet
12 years ago

Our single story ranch house in San Diego is on a slightly sloping lot. It was built in the 60s. In the 70s a long thin addition was added on most of the way across the back of the house. About 5 or 6 years ago we added more on to the back of the house so the addition goes across the whole of the house. We've used this area as a store room up to now but would like to make it the master bedroom as planned.

We bought some laminate to lay throughout the house including this room but when we had the slab inspected the flooring guy found damp in the room where the slabs meet. There was the most amount of damp where the join is and tapers out several feet each side. This makes sense as a stack of magazines that was left in this area one winter got mildewy. No other place in the house is damp, including other areas where two foundations were joined.

We'd like to figure out how to fix this ourselves -- or what to ask a contractor to do. We have put gutters in and we really get very little rain a year so...?

We are on a tight budget but don't want to skimp. As we will be putting down plastic and then laminate eventually we don't want to trap a host of ugly below it and make our house and ourselves sick.

Some ideas.

French drains.

Hardscaping around the house ($$$)

Digging out the crack and putting hydraulic cement in. Troweling on some waterproofing in that room.

Any of those any good??

Thank you for reading.

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