I’m halfway through renovating my first floor bathroom (along with the rest of the house) and have found 3 of my joists with wood worm. The affected area is directly under the old toilet and it was a bit damp under there – plywood was mouldy, floorboards completely infested with woodworm and joists not much better. Floorboards have been thrown away and replaced with new ones.
I have scraped back the affected wood to check how far the damage goes, the joists still seem pretty solid underneath the surface damage. I have also given all the joists several applications of woodworm treatment so hopefully that will deal with the woodworm themselves. My first question is – is the damage bad enough that they are not structurally sound and will need repairing/replacing?
I may not have been too concerned normally but I will be putting a new bath directly over the affected joists, so I estimate there may be an extra 250kg of weight spread across these joists when the bath is being used. The joist span between supports is only 1.4m as it is a narrow bathroom.
Assuming I do have to replace the joists, what are the options for repairing this? Are there any options that involve strengthening the existing joists without having to remove them? I have only recently finished plastering and decorating the ceiling below so really don’t want to have to take it down. To make things slightly more complicated there is also a partial-load bearing stud wall sat on top of these joists (although directly above where they sit on the wall, so no load is being transferred across the joist).
I have scraped back the affected wood to check how far the damage goes, the joists still seem pretty solid underneath the surface damage. I have also given all the joists several applications of woodworm treatment so hopefully that will deal with the woodworm themselves. My first question is – is the damage bad enough that they are not structurally sound and will need repairing/replacing?
I may not have been too concerned normally but I will be putting a new bath directly over the affected joists, so I estimate there may be an extra 250kg of weight spread across these joists when the bath is being used. The joist span between supports is only 1.4m as it is a narrow bathroom.
Assuming I do have to replace the joists, what are the options for repairing this? Are there any options that involve strengthening the existing joists without having to remove them? I have only recently finished plastering and decorating the ceiling below so really don’t want to have to take it down. To make things slightly more complicated there is also a partial-load bearing stud wall sat on top of these joists (although directly above where they sit on the wall, so no load is being transferred across the joist).
