Cellar Damp Smell

Guys, I have a cellar underneath my bar. It is about 3m x 3m and goes underneath the house slab. The house contruction is slab on ground.
The walls of the cellar are bessa blocks, and the ceiling is the house slab.
Floor is a concrete slab.

I'm having problems with the dank/damp smell in the actual room, but also I've been noticing some task transference into the beer that I've stored in there. I fear that the wine my also be affected. :eek:

Does anyone have any tips/or methods for curing this problem??

In the past i've tried simple things like moisture traps, baking soda. toilet blocks....

I was think of get some kind of sealer (???which one) and painting all surfaces with 2-3 coates, and then lining the walls and ceilings with plaster, and potentially putting in a DIY floating wooden floor.

The aim being to cure the smell/dank issue and to make the cellar more asthetically pleasing.

Any tips??

Sounds like you may also need to consider some additional ventillation. Can you pipe in some fresh (dry) air (you may need a fan) at one end and vent it out the other end to improve the circulation.

Second point would be to see if you are getting surface water around the house that can be diverted away to keep the ground as dry as possible. Good drainage around the house is essential. If you are on a sloping block you could also look at a good deep soakage drain across the top side of the house.

Sealing and lining can be good but if you have any amount of water pressure on the outside of the walls it will be difficult to stop it on the inside. It is much better to seal the outside of the walls if at all possible. Also having an air gap between the bessa block walls and the surrounding ground would be good.

(My first house in NZ had the problem of runoff from property above flowing as a waterfall when it RAINED :) down under the house into the laundry and garage! - Got it under control with a number of drains in retaining walls etc.)

Hope that helps and you get it sorted out.

In my experiience at our place, the only way to deal properly with this kind of issue is:
1. Make sure that you drain the water away, not just now but always
2. Make sure that the area is well ventilated (use fans if necessary)

Spartan

I moved into a house with a large underhouse 'room' it measures 8m x 15 meters and after a light rain shower i decided to into my dungeon, as SWMBO refers to it, to do some much needed organising. Upon entering said dungeon I heard a trickle of water. On closer inspection I found an end to a length of 2 inch gal pipe. I know the previous owner but he had no recolection of the pipe but did remember that after rain there was a musty smell for a number of weeks and it was quite damp at the back of the room.

I decided to put in major drainage about ten metres from the back of the house. I sunk the drain about two metres down and tapered it toward the side of the house. Water problem solved.

Musty smell still hung around for some time so I invested in a solar powered fan and installed it myself. No more smell either.

I was not prepared to let the problem go so we went for the complete solution and not just a bandaid. Hope this helps

Pete

Unfortuneately, there know practical way of getting an extraction fan in there.

When the lid is closed over the step steps, you are sealed in on all sides. The ceiling has a hole just large enough for the electrical cable for the light to pass through what has to be a 150mm slab.

Its set in a fair bit on each side and is really under the house, so that makes improving drainage an issue.

The area immediately surrounding the area is covered by at least 5 metres in each direction. Ground water is not an issue.

Its months since it rained properly here anyway.....

Spartan,
it sonds like the cellar wasn't properly sealed on the outside before it was backfilled. I know there must be some product/procedure available to rectify the problem, but probably horrendously expensive. When the first high rise hotel was built on the Cairns waterfront they put in a basement. Unfortunately it wasn't tanked (sealed) properly and because the water level on high tide is only about a meter or less below ground level the basement couldn't be used. I don't know what was finally used but maybe 15 years after it was built they turned the cellar into a night club. So yes, there's something out there to fix your problem, where you'll get it from I don't know. I do know that there's quite a few firms in the Gold Coast yellow pages doing concrete remediation work, these would probably be a good place to start looking. Good luck:)

Mick

Thanks guys....

I did some searching for 'tanking cellars' and got a few hits.

I just need to find some suitable paint on type products that are sold in here. Most of the hits I received on tanking cellars was from the UK.

I dropped out to bunnings and found they 3/5 of ##$@ all.

Will keep looking.....