Friday 5 June 2015

Lifting up the floorboards

We had the carpenter in this week to check out the floor joists in the living room. We knew they were shot, and that there was a lot of damp in the room, after taking up the carpet and the underlay was dripping with moisture! On closer inspection though the end of the floorboards in the corner had gone:


So it was up with the floor boards to assess the damage:


A good 3/4 of the joists had been nibbled by wood worm - ever seen one up close? We found one when taking down the timbers in the pumphouse the other day:


With all the boards up you could see one of the reasons behind the damp. 
There was one air brick below the window on the left that was open and able to flow:


On the right however it was a very different matter:


We had already discussed about needing to introduce a gravel drainage system around the perimeter of the house but seeing the extent of this damage it has crept up much higher in the to do list!

Due to the damage being a little worse than we thought, we decided to get all of the joists relaid and after a few days work it was complete:


membrane on the ends to save any future water damage, 
and with well treated timbers this floor should now last us a good while now - phew!


All that's left now is to take up the rest of the downstairs floorboards - some of which are feeling very squidgy! Watch this space for flooring update number 2, 3, 4...


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