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Hi, we did manage to get our roof retiled and had hoped no more issues for a good while but looks like I found some dry rot 🤦♂️
We have a couple of local damp/timber companies coming round in the next two weeks for a survey. I was planning on pulling up the alcove flooring and unboxing the pipes that are close to it.
Is it also worth lifting the kitchen flooring to check the floorboards and joists at the same time? Any pointers would be great on wherever “removing all unaffected timber within 1m” is real or not, or what can be done to stop the damp.
- Noticed a ~35cm section of skirting board in our alcove has rotted and bubbling/flaking of plaster/paint in that area
- It is a 100 year old solid brick house with a 1970s block and brick extension
- I think it’s plaster bridging to the concrete foundation, moisture caused the dry rot and can see hyphae
- No other wood has softened or has visible signs of rot
- No asbestos in wall texture, we had it tested.
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My first advice would be, calm down.
It looks like a botch 'patch up' job, so maybe pull out that bit of filler/skirting, let it breathe and see how it goes.
What's the boxed in area just behind it, plumbing? Probably a bit hasty bringing in a company to survey it, if they are free surveys they are not going to be impartial...
Buy your own moisture meter and use reference readings from the same materials in other parts of the house to see if there is an obvious difference.
@mattyfez - Fair point about calming down, it did come up at exactly the wrong time. I was looking to resign next week, work stress and redundancies mean I need a change.
@spooky_b329 - I do have a two pronged moisture meter, so will do some comparative readings again around the house.
The two we chose are not free surveys so paid, which might help a bit. Will also contact a local builder we are friendly with.
Boxed in section has the hot, cold and rad pipes for the bathroom running along the wall.
Buying expensive treatments wouldn't be my first choice, so tackle the cause
Either you or the builder need to expose behind the various boxing, skirtings, artex?, etc and see what the problem is and its extent. Sort the environmental and the rot can be controlled
Joist ends in older houses often contact outside solid walls, so a limited look under the floor might help if the cause isn't obvious above floor level
Once you've sorted the cause decide what treatments, if any, are needed
Is that on the interface wall between the main house and extension ?
I'll take a shiny penny on the joint at the roof leaking.
Been so dry humidity wise for so long now that even damp rot will start to look like dry rot.
Thanks for the replies, definitely want to address the underlying problem.
Skirtings on the floor in the extension are showing as 15%. Any wood 30cm over floor level is showing as less than 10%.
The area with rot came up as 25-40% on that section, bottom of the door frame by the rot was 18-20%.
The single story flat roof did leak ~5 years ago, had the pointing fixed and area by the joint sealed. Can’t spot any wet patches on the ceiling and upper walls are dry.
There is a shared chimney above it on the main roof that had damp patches on the plastered chimney breast, we hopefully had it fixed when the roof was redone recently.
Old news, could've been like that for donkeys years. What's the floor on? If its concrete/stone i'd say condsensation might have been the problem or your now fixed roof. Shut the door, have a cup of tea.