discovered quarry tiles - what to do?

[lulupop]

Hello

My partner and I have just purchased our first house, an 1896 terraced cottage in Bedfordshire.

Unfortunately, on moving day (mid Dec 2010) we had a burst pipe in the kitchen as the weather was so cold and the previous owners had switched the heating off a few days earlier.

After removing the damaged flooring, we now face the problem of knowing what to do in this area. The current flooring is timber suspended boards which have been placed on joists that are sitting on what looks like the original quarry tiles (which I presume is on earth and has no dpm).

I was quite excited to discover the quarry tiles but after further inspection and the more floor we pull up it seems we will not be able to have it uncovered. There is an extension that was added on to the back of the house and where it links the kitchen, there is exposed bare earth and bricks, there is also a lot of pipe work and wires running across the floor (see pics below).

As we have been pulling up the damaged wooden floor, we have found that the wooden joists which sit on the tiles are completely rotten, it looks like this rot would have occurred over a number of years but I imagine the burst pipe hasn't helped with the damp problem. The walls seem to be ok with no signs of damp.

I'm not really sure how to progress, having the original tiles doesn't seem to be an option due to the pipe work and exposed bricks, we're thinking of putting a plastic dmp down, then new joists and flooring, however I am worried about causing damp by covering the tiles.

Our little pot of money we had saved up probably won’t stretch to any major work so any suggestions would be most welcome. This is our first house and it is all a bit daunting, I nearly had a panic attack when I discovered the rotting mess under the floor!

L

 

[Schoolmarm]

My downstairs bathroom has been botched like that. The floor was raised over the flagstone floor and now has pipes and toilet waste etc set to the level of the wood.


I was resigned to leaving it, but seeing yours has given me some ideas. The pipes can be boxed in or left on view. You could have a step to take you up into the extension perhaps? Would a built step cover the damage caused by the extension?

Do you mean the bricks in the wall are showing? I can't see which bricks you mean, or are they on the floor?

It is one of those jobs where you probably can't see the wood for the trees until a lot or even all the wooden floor has been removed.

 

[Feltwell]

Looks like a bit of a botch job I'm afraid, but not one that should be too bad to correct. Voids underneath wooden floors need to be vented - I'd bet yours was sealed up, has got all damp and so rotted the timber. They are not really joists that the floorboards are resting on, more just spacers to the original floor, and even with ventilation they will rot in the end.

Those tiles are really nice - is uncovering them back to the original level not a possibility, maybe with a step to the extension as Schoolmarm suggests? Reclaimed quarry tiles are not that expensive, and if it's a seperate room maybe you can get away without an exact match.

For now, bearing in mind this is your first house and I'm sure money is tight, you could just replace the "joists" and put it back as it is now - they will rot again of course, but it won't cost much, it won't cause any permanent damange and it give you a couple of years at least to both save up and to work out exactly what you want to do. If you decide to do this then try and have some ventilation gaps to the sub-floor space - holes under kitchen units are an easy way.

A plastic dpm won't do much except have lots of condensation sitting under it. Much better to let any damp "breathe" into the room than to try and trap it. A better idea is to get some plastic DPC and sit that under your "joists" only - that will give them a barrier but allow the floor around them to breathe. This stuff, it's very cheap, any builders merchant will have it:-

http://www.screwfix.com/p/damp-proof-course-100mm-x-30m/25271

But I stress that none of this is a permanent fix, only a temporary patch up.

 

[lulupop]

Thanks for all your advice.

The previous owner had shoved insulation in all the voids, so I doubt there would have been much ventilation. Good idea about the plastic sheeting, and leaving gaps under the kitchen units, I hadn't thought of this. We will probably use proper treated wood suitable for outdoors as well, hopefully this will last a little longer.

We are planning on pulling up the whole floor this weekend so will be able to see what state the other tiles are in, I'm hoping they are ok. The picture that shows the bricks is the original wall that joins the extension. I would love to have the tiled floor if possible and could definitely see the step idea working, but the pipe work for a radiator and water supply to the extension runs right across the middle of the room so I doubt it can be easily moved?

Will have to wait and see what we find, I'm feeling a lot more positive about it all!

 

[Feltwell]

Moving pipes is not that difficult, especially if you're doing other work at the same time. Same goes for cables - the main problem is usually accessing the area which they are to run through, the actual cable/pipe installation is usually the easy bit! The only exception is waste pipes - as these rely on gravity they can be trickier to re-route.

Leave some small gaps in your "joists" so that each area under the floor can vent into those around it, as not all will be located beneath a kitchen unit I bet. I'd take all the insulation out for now. With a bit of work this will buy you at least a couple of years grace with relatively little expense I reckon, especially if you re-use the existing floorboards.

Roofing battens may do for your "joists" (spacers!) - you can get these from any builders or roofers merchants, not from a DIY store. They are treated rough sawn timber battens that usually are used on a roof to fix the tiles too, they are very cheap and come in large bundles normally. From memory they are something like 1" x 1 1/2".

 

[lulupop]

Thanks, some really great tips here.

We are getting a plumber round to install some new radiators so depending on the state of the tiles, we can ask him about moving the pipes.

Out of interest, you say replacing the wooden spacers is a patch up job. If we are unable to have the original tiles due to damage or pipe work, what would be your suggestion for a more permanent solution? I've had workmen mention digging up the floor and cementing it but if possible I would like to avoid this.

 

[Flyfisher]

Ventilation, ventilation, ventilation . . . . which is more or less what others have said above.

If your tiles are just set into the ground (quite likely I'd guess) then there will inevitably be a small amount of moisture coming through. With adequate ventilation this need not be a problem but covering over with wood and filling the voids with insulation will simply trap any moisture and . . . well, you now know from experience.

If you really want to expose the tiled floor then I wouldn't be too concerned about the pipework; it shouldn't be a big job to re-route the pipes around the edges of the floor and perhaps box them in if you have an aversion to visible pipework (it doesn't overly bother me and makes maintenance so much easier!).

If you do want to repair the existing floor then the roof batten suggestion laid on DPM (but only under the wood - not covering the entire floor area) is a good one, and one I'd expect to last a lot longer than just a few years. Especially with adequate ventilation.

If you need larger joists then any size of wood can be "pressure treated", although I'm not sure if the treatment is identical to that used for roofing battens, which come in 1x1.5 inch or 2x1 inch sizes as standard (or 50x25 and 38x25 in 'new money'). A builder's merchant is probably a better source than the DIY sheds though.

Did I mention the importance of ventilation?

 

[Feltwell]

If you need larger joists then any size of wood can be "pressure treated", although I'm not sure if the treatment is identical to that used for roofing battens, which come in 1x1.5 inch or 2x1 inch sizes as standard (or 50x25 and 38x25 in 'new money'). A builder's merchant is probably a better source than the DIY sheds though.

Thanks FF, I'd forgotten the standard sizes.

The treatment used is nearly always Tanalith, which is the green-tinged timber (referred to as tanalised). It is the same. Vac-vac, which is colourless, is the other main source of commercial treatment if my creaky old memory serves me right, but it's rarer and usually used for exposed joinery timber. My knowledge is 20 years out of date though so it may have changed, timber treatment is nasty stuff and environmental legislation has got a lot tighter!

A good timber merchant will get it treated for you, but even the DIY sheds sell pre-treated timber - often sold for use with decking. Wickes have quite a good selection. Roofing battens will be cheaper though, if those sizes are any good. I use them quite a bit for the garden for things like making heavy-duty trellis.

Digging up the floor, installing a full DPM and laying a concrete floor will be what many builders will suggest to you. It's not a good idea, as others on here will testify. It can cause no problems at all, but it can also cause all the moisture under the floor (that originally would have evaporated through the gaps between the tiles) to instead be forced up into your walls, making them damp. Personally, I'd relay a tile floor without concrete or DPM as the long term solution, using reclaimed quarry tiles if the originals are beyond redemption. First approach would be to see if what is there can be patch repaired though.

 

[Moo]

I've had workmen mention digging up the floor and cementing it but if possible I would like to avoid this.

Have nothing more to do with them!

As others have said, quarry tiles/pamments/flags will be perfectly happy laid straight on to earth, provided there's ventilation and you don't cover them with an impervious 'sealer'.
We have flags and payments on our ground floor and they stay bone dry all year round - except for one occasion when a large cardboard box was left sitting on the floor for several months; when we moved it the floor (and the bottom of the box) was visibly damp. Within days of its removal all the moisture had evaporated and we were back to normal.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I've had workmen mention digging up the floor and cementing it but if possible I would like to avoid this.

(Welcome)

No No No No No NO!

Dispense with these workmen forthwith! They clearly know nothing. Cementing floors will just push the damp elsewhere and is rarely a solution in an old property.

Destroying original historical fabric is a terrible and irreversible thing to do. I remember our first house - we made lots of mistakes. I wish we hadn't.

If you can't afford a sympathetic permanent solution, (and who can in their first house!) then it is perfectly OK to do a temporary repair and let others do it in the future instead. Please don't do anythign permanent that will damage the house. Someone later (possibly you) will be able to restore that floor and I am sure it will look fantastic.

Most of us on here have come to a position where we tend to think of oursleves as the custodians of our old houses for future generations, rather than current owners whose immediate needs/wishes are paramount. It might sound a bit snooty, but as an ethos it usually means we do conservative and sympathetic things rather than rush in.

As you've seen there are loads of very helpful, friendly and knowledgeable people on here who will be very happy to advise on all manner of things. We're all learning a bit more each day.

Can we see a few more pics of your place - just for interest, you see! 8)

Robin

 

[robgil]

If it were me and I was going to all that trouble to rip up the timber floor I would put the rest of the effort into repairing the quarry tiled floor, unless it was really bad, really really bad.
Its easy to put down a dpm and cement then tell you you need a damp expert when your walls get damp but no builder on earth could lay a lovely original floor like the one you are about to uncover.


Edit - It looks as though , from the photos , your tiles were painted red at some point, you may need these guys in your arsenal of contacts and suppliers.

http://www.stripperspaintremovers.com/

 

[lulupop]

Hello

Thought I would give an update as we've been working all day to pull up the timber floor to see what was underneath.

Unfortunately we have decided to pull up the tiles and cement the floor... only joking!

Well after pulling up all the boards, we were left with lots of insulation (see pics below).

And then we discovered a damp floor with sludgy residue that looks to be in pretty good condition! There are a few damaged tiles where the previous owner had drilled holes through to screw the wooden spacers but luckily he had rested most of the wood on to the floor without securing.

The main problem as to exposing the floor permanently is the pipe work that runs across (one of them being a gas pipe). We have a plumber coming over next week so will ask him as to the possibilities of re-routing them.

In the meantime we will sweep up and have a go at cleaning one or two tiles to see what they will look like, we removed a loose tile and it looks like compacted sand and earth underneath. I’ve also put a pic of the design on the back of the tile, would you say this is original?

Thanks for all your helpful, friendly advice, it's so nice to hear from likeminded people. The thought of ripping out what little original features we have and replacing with concrete, ply board or any other horrible modern materials is definitely not something we will ever consider.

 

[Schoolmarm]

So exciting!!

 

[Feltwell]

Fantastic! Have a think before your plumber arrives about where you'd like those pipes to go, see what he says. If you're feeling brave you could move the water & heating pipes yourself - the gas obviously leave to a corgi-registered fitter though.

I had my boiler serviced recently, the plumber told me he'd been to a job earlier that week where someone had tried to connect up a new gas boiler themselves - using pushfit plumbing fittings :shock:

I don't think anyone can say for certain they are the original tiles, but I'd be very surprised if they are not - they are perfectly in keeping with the age of the house and are very hard wearing, it's unlikely they've been changed. Are any of the neighbours houses the same? Being a terrace it's likely they would have been used for all the houses.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Welcome to sunny Bedfordshire---------- great to find a fellow PPUk'er in the area at last!! Are you in Central, North or South Beds? Actually I like to think that I am living in Bedfordshire.

Good Luck with your exciting finds.!

 

[MatthewC]

the gas obviously leave to a corgi-registered fitter though.

[pedant mode] Do keep up! It's "Gas Safe" now![/pedant mode]

 

[Feltwell]

Ahh. Clearly the powers-that-be in the world of gas regulation were worried that we would confuse a properly trained and certified gas fitter with a small Welsh herding dog or some old children's toys. Better safe than sorry eh?

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Wouldn't GasOf have been more in keeping with other red-tape organisations? And a useful reminder what to do in dangerous situations?

Along similar lines, I'm proposing the new Office of the Toilet Industry Regulator is called BogOf.

What should we call the new brewing industry regulator though? 8)

 

[Gareth Hughes]

The turf-growers' regulator is having problems with a name too...

 

[FamilyWiggs]

The turf-growers' regulator is having problems with a name too...

Err... don't get it....