After having had some leaks into the garage over the last 6 months (especially during April to June when it rained solidly) it was determined by my father in law that the likely cause was water getting under the crazy paving patio, getting into some soil underneath and then ingressing between the join of the wall and the floor
I stupidly thought that after (at least) 20 years of being down, levering the first one up would allow the next to be done and so on. Daft must be middle name because the first one came up in seconds but then everything else was basically superglued down.
After the best part of an hour and a half trying to shift 2 or 3 of the slabs (with the intention of putting them all back down afterwards), we gave up and went into smashing mode. We (my nephew Luke and me) picked up “Bertha” – dads sledgehammer, and pick axe and spent yesterday afternoon breaking up the slabs.
Even that was a job and half – with Luke doing an awful lot of the work. Once we’d got a lot up, we found they had in fact been laid on a bed of concrete but with massive gaps, and great big pockets of soil. Further digging found holes in the walls in various places and lots and lots of sodden clay.
Saturday evening was left with a big hole in the ground but all of the concrete out of the way
Sunday morning, I cleared 6 buckets of soil to get down about 2 inches lower than the concrete slab. Rubber pads were sealed over the holes and roofing sealant squeezed in a line across the width of the hole
And then the plastic sheeting went down, ensuring the we covered the join between the wall and floor.
And now the concrete can go down
and finally running out of concrete. We got enough concrete in to cover over the plastic sheeting and seal it to the wall so to all intents it is waterproof, once the concrete is dry
Luke (bless him), and his nan (my mother in law) is coming back tomorrow after more sand and cement are bought, to level off the concrete and put the shingle over the top which will finish off the job and then its just a case of filling the jagged edges of the crazy paving to give a straight line and the job is done.
There was me thinking the paving would take 2 to 3 hours to remove, digging down another couple of hours and another couple of hours to concrete back in again. We’ve put approximately 100 kgs of concrete into a hole today, and whilst Luke did an awful lot, I am knackered!!