Hi all,

I am in the process of building a house with a basement. When planning the house, the town hall suggested that we build a waterproof tank (I believe it’s called), basically it is what surrounds a swimming pool but instead of keeping the water in, it keeps it out and allows the land to soak up the water instead of draining it into the sewer.

The original basement price was €35k but because of this waterproof system, the promoter said that in total it would cost us €100k. We managed to double check with their contractor through them and he said that actually the total cost would be €60k, meaning that this waterproof system was gonna cost us an additional €25k.

Fast forward to today… the basement has already been built and now they are starting on the walls of the ground floor. I have been to the construction site and saw no sign of this “waterproof tank” and so I asked their contractor directly what was up. He then told me that it would not be possible to install this waterproof tank because we had too many windows in the basement therefore is was obsolete. That instead of the waterproof tank what they have prepared for was a pump that would push the water up into the sewer to drain it (the sewer level is higher than the basement level). The contractor also said that the waterproof tank would be significantly more expensive than the pump system and essentially it would do the same job and was as reliable.

I then contacted the promoter to find out the price difference between this waterproof tank and the pump system so we could get reimbursed since we were no longer going to have what we had paid so much money for and they replied with an email saying that there was no price difference and that they were going to cover the laundry room sink pump that costs €3k.

I can’t ask the contractor directly about pricing since the promoter is his client and his main customer so I was hoping that someone on this forum could enlighten me on this situation and if I’m being ripped off.

Thank you all very much in advance.