Lots of houses in sheffield have cellar heads. My house has one (and obviously a cellar).

The ones I've seen in the past are generally a bit grimy, rather dark and not the nicest place in the house.

I've spent a couple of days with my dads help putting up some tongue and groove from B&Q, for just over £100 quid worths of materials, and a couple of spare downlights from previous projects it's completely transformed it!

Obviously it's still a small pokey landing and a set of stairs, but it's clean, it's bright and it looks like it will stay that way.

I just thought i'd share in case anyone else had a grimey cellar head and wished it could be a bit more pleasant.

PS - I'm going to put up shelves that will make it useful as well as more pleasant.

If your cellar head has a flat floor at the top of the stairs which in olden days was probably used as the pantry then one of my neighbours had a good idea.He put a trapdoor in over the steps themselves which meant the storage area was increased and it looked better. To access the cellar all he had to do was remove the few things he kept on the trap door and it could then be lifted.

if the cellar itself has not been 'tanked' (dampproofed), you'll find the main reason for the cellar head being manky is the spores from the damp floating up there :gag:

the suggestion given by WallBuilder will keep the cellarhead as part of the dry house rather than the damp cellar

if the cellar is damp, you'll find all that tongue and groove will warp if you don't address the situation - even if you only buy a dehumidifier - though if the cellar is liable to flooding, make sure it's operationg above your high tide line :thumbsup:

if the cellar itself has not been 'tanked' (dampproofed), you'll find the main reason for the cellar head being manky is the spores from the damp floating up there :gag:

the suggestion given by WallBuilder will keep the cellarhead as part of the dry house rather than the damp cellar

if the cellar is damp, you'll find all that tongue and groove will warp if you don't address the situation - even if you only buy a dehumidifier - though if the cellar is liable to flooding, make sure it's operationg above your high tide line :thumbsup:

You sound like you're knowledable about this. Any idea how much to get a smallish (terraced house size) cellar tanked? Just a roundabout, ball park figure? :)

You sound like you're knowledable about this. Any idea how much to get a smallish (terraced house size) cellar tanked? Just a roundabout, ball park figure? :)

When I had a cellarhead (and a cellar) I was quoted around £1500.00, about 4 years ago. After a bit of a sit-down (!) I realised I could live quite happily in a state of untanked-ness!!

It's not tanked, but it's fairly dry as cellars go.
The T&G will be treated as soon as it's finished so it shouldn't be able to absorb much moisture.

Cellar to useable room conversions start in the 10k bracket these days.

Ooooh I don't want to use it, just want it to stop being so horrible down there. I'd love a nice, concreted floor instead of the nasty brick floor that I've got.

when tanking, doing just the walls is pointless when damp comes through the floor.
so, to maintain the headroom, you usually have to dig down 10"ish as the concrete needs a damp proof layer below, and below that your need a sand then grit then hardcore layers with optional polystyrene insulation under the concrete. once youve spent the money doing that, tanking and drywalling with electrics behind it all is a small added cost, from there all you need to do is decorate to make it into a usuable room. there not really much of a middle ground with cellars in that regard.

or you could make extra use of the cella head by having lots of built in storage to accomodate all your bits and bobs, pm for details we also convert cellars into useable rooms,

I'm going to build storage into it, I started putting down ply on the floor tonight.
Once i've done all the steps I have to do the T&G on the stairs ceiling, wire up the downlighters and then put up the shelving.
It already looks approximately a million billion times better than it did two weeks ago.

Anyone ever come across a place with a cellar head but no cellar? Am househunting at the mo, and house i've seen recently has just that. The owners swear there is no cellar - just the steps then a wall. Next door is the same apparently! Seems odd to me..

Anyone ever come across a place with a cellar head but no cellar? Am househunting at the mo, and house i've seen recently has just that. The owners swear there is no cellar - just the steps then a wall. Next door is the same apparently! Seems odd to me..

Some houses are like that. Most traditional terraced houses were built before they had skips to take tonnes of rubble and waste bricks away. My belief is that if they had too much extra rubble and no way of easily getting rid of it, then the next house would have it in the space that could be the cellar and then it would be sealed up.

As I know most of my neighbours, I know that all their houses have different configurations of cellars. One has a massive cellar under the whole house next to it's identical neighbour has no cellar at all. I assume that the buyer of the first house will have paid extra to the builders so he could use the whole of his cellar for a workshop or something, so they just chucked it all under the second one.
Another slighly smaller house next to mine has no cellar, but it was added on later, so presumably it was easier to do that.

The house you looked at had been underpinned. That usually happens when the foundations are rubbish.

The house you looked at had been underpinned. That usually happens when the foundations are rubbish.

Excuse my ignorance:huh: But what does that mean?

Excuse my ignorance:huh: But what does that mean?

Sorry - the underpinning bit??

if the builders just chucked rubish down there, it'd settle and cause damage

Surely the hills sheffield is built on play a part in cellar configurations?

Underpinning is a process for tackling subsidence isn't it? stopping the building from disintegrating from the bottom up? or preventing it from sinking more to the point

Sorry BG - I've no idea on costs. Architects offices usually bandy these phrases about with no costs attached for initial draughts ;)

Cyclone - if you don't treat both sides of your timber, it will absorb moisture through the back in this environment ;)

The house you looked at had been underpinned. That usually happens when the foundations are rubbish.


Apart from many houses were built like this cerca 1900. I am no expert but I would have thought underpinning of houses was later technology