Cobbled interior floor

[Donnatyler46]

Hi looking for some helpful suggestions. We've just finished restoring our grandparents home, grade 2 listed approx 400 years old. In one room we have a half cobbled half concrete floor. Planning permission for a floating floor was refused and we have no ideas what to do. Anything placed on the floor becomes saturated as the floor is so damp. We have even had to have the skirting boards highered to stop the damp travelling through them and up the wall. This is the largest room in the property and at present cannot be used.
Any ideas? Or suggestions for a type of flooring that maybe approved. The idea of a floating floor was put forward so the original flooring was left untouched.

 

[DavidB]

Concrete and cobbles!?!? Sounds a little odd.
Are these directly lying on the earth?
If they are then the moisture from the ground will be trapped by the cement and travel sideways into the walls so you will get damp in your walls - hence why the skirting rots.
What are the cobbles bedded into is it more cement?
Have you thought about digging up the cement and replacing it with something like flagstones on bed of lime mortar.
Have you tried removing some of the cement near the edge of the room by a wall. You might find cutting a trench along a wall allows moisture to escape.

 

[Roger H]

Planning permission for a floating floor was refused and we have no ideas what to do.

Seems a bit harsh. Presume you mean Listed Building Consent. What has the Conservation Officer advised? Not massively practical to have raw cobbles and concrete as a finished surface in a house...

 

[bobby spray]

It is easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission! just do it.

 

[Roger H]

It is easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission! just do it.

Make sure it is reversible though as you don't want an unlimited fine and/or up to 4 years imprisonment - you would be getting an all-concrete floor there. :shock:

Seriously, if you proposed a floating floor which left the existing floor in situ, what was the issue?

 

[JanJonWestWales]

We had(have) a cobbled basement.
It was very wet, literally a stream running through it on wet days
Dug it all up
dug a french drain with perforated pipe, luckily there was a drain outside
Layed the cobbles back into NHL5 lime
Fitted a solar extractor fan into the basement window (empties about a room full of moist air an hour)
and hey presto, the floor is dry
The walls are still damp, but then its a basement and it has to go somewhere....mostly out of the window every hour

So go for it, re-lay them into Lime, NHL5 is strong enough but still breathes, it may help with the damp walls too.

http://blaencwmbychan.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/back-to-basement.html

 

[JanieB]

That's interesting. A listed hotel not too far from me wanted to put concrete over the cobbles that formed the passageway over which horse drawn carriages used to travel to get to the courtyard and stables in the back. In this case the Conservation Officer advised a floating wooden floor so as not to disturb the original cobbles. Another very similar hotel had theirs covered over before listing was started. The current licensees wanted to reverse this but the expense and hard work defeated them.

Perhaps if the OP had started with an application to cover the floor in concrete the CO might have suggested a floating floor.

I thought the idea of conservation was to keep buildings in use. If you have a room that is unusable through damp that isn't conserving it. Ask him what he suggests. And you can always appeal the decision.