legalities around doing up a cellar

[FunOP]

Hello everyone,

i have a cellar. no window and the ceiling isnt high enough.

the cellar has light, the gas and electric metre boxes and is just a room to store items really. nothing fancy and looks like your typical cellar.

would i be able to put in a wall and flooring? basically make it look like a normal room instead of a cellar. dont want to turn it in a bedroom or living space or anything like that as i can't afford to put in windows, excavate and the whole lot. i just want it to look a bit more pleasant. perhaps use it as a laundry room or place to store ambient goods as my kitchen is small.

would builders be able to install a wall that covers the bare bricks and would they be able to do the flooring or would there be issues around that? what about building regulations?

thank you

It will have been built to be permiable to moisture. So if it seems dryish the reason is because there is plenty of air passing through. As soon as you start covering the walls, you reduce the airflow and stuff will start getting damp and rotting. You could paint the brickwork with limewash to make it a bit nicer and get a radiator out down there to make it drier and warmer.

You could put a waterproof membrane on the floor and then tile over it but that could end up meaning that the walls are damper. The heating will help with this.

At best paint it with breathable paint and run a dehumidifier

this isn’t something you can 1/2 do your wasting your money

If you do anything at all to reduce permeability you risk saturating the walls and pushing moisture up into the house walls. The only thing that won't impede breathability, or store up problems for the future, is limewash.