Removing concrete from back garden

[chad1991]

Hello, I bought a terraced Victorian house in London, and the back garden level has been increased by a fair amount with concrete. This has caused damp issues (as the ground level has been increased above the damp proof course) and we'd also like to have a normal back garden with soil and grass. Has anyone else done this and can lend any advice?

My brother's first house was like this, back garden had a double layer of concrete across a fair proportion of it plus a massive concrete pond in the far corner (turned out a previous owner worked for the local pre-mix company!).
It was just lots of hard work with a breaker and several (lots!) of skips.
In this day and age with skips costing what they do a grab service may be a better bet but you will need access plus be able to work around all the broken concrete piling up before it is cleared.

Do Victorian terraces have a damp proof course?

@tanstaafl

Do Victorian terraces have a damp proof course?

My friends' house did, and when they had all the concrete dug out it fixed their damp problem. Sadly it's a few years back and I forget the details of how they had it done, but it worked!

We did it. They came with a huge jack hammer and broke it up and removed it. We then put grass down it looks great

@tanstaafl

Do Victorian terraces have a damp proof course?

IME, yes.

In London, they were required from 1875.