unwanted indoor swimming pool

[pedrobewan]

The back of our house is built approximately one metre into a banking which slopes up to a D-road about three metres away from the building. When it rains heavily( as it often does of late in our neck of the woods ) the rain water finds its way into our kitchen and the mop bucket gets over-time and a half .    

What's the best way to put in a land drain to help prevent this and or, does anyone think it would be worth approaching the mairie as most of the water is running off the road and on to our property.

Any ideas or examples of past experiences in this field would be appreciated.[um] 

[Quillan]

It's the DDE who look after the road but seeing the mayor might help push your case. The other people to contact could be the French equivelent of Health and Safety because the chemicals that come of the road are very toxic although the field has probably absorbed most of it by the time it gets to you.

[Nick Trollope]

Or a more practical solution may be to install a drain at the top of the slope (sorry Chris). This could be as simple as a covered hole filled with hardcore, or as complicated as you want to make it. I would be concerned about the quality of the water coming off the road (as Chris suggests), which may influence your solution.

[Quillan]

Nick, I would be more worried about the road water and where it goes. I suspect by what was posted before that there is some distance between the road and house so the ground is filtering out the nasty stuff. I think I would tend to look at the ground cover, grass etc, carefully at different distances from the road for colour and density sort of thing. I have noticed where there is bad drainage in the UK not much grows next to the road but the further away you get the weeds etc start to grow. I thought if they got the environmental agency (I believe it's part of the Forestry Department in France) to take a few soil samples and if iit goes the right way for them they might get it all sorted for nothing. Digging a trench is a solution but you are just treating the symptom and moving the problem somewhere else but then if they get no help then it's a good one (solution).

[Tony F Dordogne]

Sounds all to familiar to me.

We had a similar problem though not with a road in such close proximity.  A bank at the back of our house ran rainwater straight onto the back wall.  The previous owner had allowed soil to build up and had built a lean-to on the wall and the water ran straight into the house, all above the damp course, all bedrooms flooded and the garage 2" of water.

After consultation with the insurance company (we're now in a legal tussle with the previous owner over a vice cache claim) we put in a land drain about 20 cm from the back wall, after clearing all the soil and demolishing the lean-to, about half a metre down, covered in castine type stuff.  It's worked perfectly.

Don't know how long you've been in the house but if it's a recent purchase and if the previous owner didn't tell you about the problem, it may be worth speaking to your insurance company about it, especially if you have legal protection insurance.

[pedrobewan]

Thanks for your comments Chris, Nick and Tony.

Never thought about the toxin issue. We've got a four month old boy and I'd settled for mopping for a while until the better weather arrived but I'll have to make a move now.

we bought the house cheap with a "no guarantee" clause from the previous owner so we can't really follow your suggestion, Tony, and by the way, what's castine, please. Could be the way forward for us.

Thanks.

[Tony F Dordogne]

Castine is the chalky/limestone stuff that is used for paths - called different things in different places.

As for the vice cache, it's actually designed for your/my situation exactly - we had a no guarantee clause also but IF the vendor does not disclose a salient fact - like the propensity to flood - it negates the no guarantee clause. The mediator from the insurance company says that it's to stop people lying at the time of a sale and to give the buyer some safety net.  He looked at our sale document, shrugged his shoulders, said we had a clear vice cache claim and voila, meeting with the vendor tomorrow week to discuss what he is going to do about it.

I was sceptical about getting anything back but the mediator says he'll get the money, even if he has to set the huissier on him!

[maude]

Hi-we had the similar problem except the plonker who sold us the house had connected the rainwater from one roof,to drain into the fosse septique! he said it kept it sweet!French too.After getting no response from the maire,I trenched out on my land at the roadside and laid a land drain which now puts the rainwater into the road drain manhole!25 metre long,18" down,done in one day before the locals snitched!maude