Draughts - floor boards and skirting

[grahamwookie]

Hi All, I own a lovely Vic mid terrace house, all floor boards down on the ground floor, carpet upstairs. The floor boards down stairs are becoming quite cold during these darker, colder days. Also the skirting has a gap of 20mm, and through this I can see the air brick and outside!

My question is, did people use paper maché to fill these gaps? I could dye the maché too so it blends into the boarding etc

What do you think?

Also, I just finished re instating my perimetre railings, original design (i hope).

Which are now a glossy black

 

[Gervase]

Papier mache was the commonest gap sealant - don't use newspaper, though, as it goes to a rather nasty grey colour - use decent cartridge paper, and consider using watercolour or poster paint to dye it to match the floor. 20mm is a large gap, though - that sort of width might be better sorted by inserting a narrow fillet of softwood and planing it down level with the existing floor.
The exterior looks fabulous, by the way.

 

[grahamwookie]

Thank you very much. The wall at the front needs the extra cement clearing from the joints but with the railings now black, she's the best on the street (which is what Im aiming for) ;-) Comments from neighbours are "Look what you've bloody started"... to "they look nice, how much..." The first I think is referring to there wives now wanting the same and the second, a very bold, but a very Darlington way of making conversation ;-)

I'll try inserting wood and then maybe sealing with mastic sealant or paper maché behind the wood. Thanks again

 

[Nemesis]

CEMENT????

 

[AMc]

If you have the time and/or money consider insulating between the joists. That will result in a much warmer floor, fewer draughts and lower bills. Even with the basic ventilation heat loss solved by filling the cracks, 1/2" of wooden board between your feet and the wind blowing underneath isn't much insulation. I know as that's what we have (for the moment)!

It would involve lifting the floorboards adding insulation and relaying. There are a variety of ways to support the insulation to ensure there is adequate ventilation under the joists. If you're using loose fillings, mineral wool or sheeps wool then you can suspend it in chicken wire 'baskets' stapled between the joists. Solid foam boards are more effective but more expensive, supported on batterns attached to the inside faces of the joists. Pay attention to sealing the gaps at the top to minimise air gaps and ensure you keep unrestricted air flow underneath to prevent problems with moisture etc.

Lifting the floor isn't for the faint hearted but you could spend an awful lot of time plugging the gaps between the boards and end up with not much improvement.

 

[GeoffP]

When I replaced the boards in my kitchen, I insulated using solid insulation boards (which I scrounged from a builder friend) the difference is amazing. The room now feels much warmer and no draughts. They also protect the hot water pipes which run below the floorboards.
Fortunately, I have access from the cellar below so I cut oversize and jammed them between the joists. I will eventually lime wash these to match the rest of the cellar when I get round to it.

I used a modern filler in a tube to fill the small skirting board gaps, nothing like 20mm though.

Geoff

 

[shelli]

Thank you very much. The wall at the front needs the extra cement clearing from the joints but with the railings now black, she's the best on the street (which is what Im aiming for) ;-) Comments from neighbours are "Look what you've bloody started"... to "they look nice, how much..." The first I think is referring to there wives now wanting the same and the second, a very bold, but a very Darlington way of making conversation ;-)

I'll try inserting wood and then maybe sealing with mastic sealant or paper maché behind the wood. Thanks again

Are you aiming for Authentic Victorian filling? - I wouldn't put papier mache in the gaps - mice etc nesting material - but you've probably thought about this already - also wouldn't be waterproof.

Why not prepare strips of wood, tapered across their width. These long wedges can be glued on one side only and tapped into place. Plane or sand the top until it is flush with the floor. I had a link to company that supplied wedges ready made in various lengths but can't find it - could have been through ebay - will have a look - fairly easy to do yourself though.

Love the House by the way - My Nanna's house on Vane Terrace was similar except it had hedge instead at front

 

[Nemesis]

Papier mache works well, it dries very hard indeed and it should be varnished with whatever finish the floor has.

 

[wobs]

Rather than papier mache, there is always LECOL 7500 FILLER which you mix with sawdust and use on gaps of 5mm or less.

I recall someone saying here (could have been Toby), that any filler will eventually fall out, but we've had no bother with ours. This stuff sets quite hard, but seems to have a bit of flexibility to accomodate the movements of the floor.

Any gap over 5mm, I would either lift boards and reset them so they are closer, or fit bits of wood in the gaps.

 

[ljn]

Ready cut slithers: http://www.oldpinecompany.co.uk/slivers/index.asp

Nice colour and finish on that bay!

 

[Feltwell]

Outside of the house looks lovely, windows are so much nicer than the plastic tat your neighbour has fitted!

You don't always need to lift the floorboards, if you are lucky the gap under them is big enough to crawl about in, although it's not the most pleasant place to work it's a lot easier to make an access hole and do that than taking all the floorboards up.

I used ordinary loft insulation between the joists, as floor joists usually seem to be on the same spacings as ceiling joists (haven't a clue why) the pre-cut insulation fitted nicely and holds itself in place long enough to fix chicken wire underneath with a staple gun. The insulation is a lot cheaper than solid foam board like Kingspan or Celotex, or for that matter the sheeps wool insulation (but nowhere near as environmentally friendly or pleasant to work with of course).

I cut some to stuff in from underneath round the edges of the room - which seems to have stopped the draught from the gap below the skirting nicely, so no need to fill that now.

I can't overestimate the importance of not obstructing any air bricks though - A couple of mine are quite high, between the joists and only 2" below the bottom of the floor boards, so I didn't use the loft insulation next to those. I put a small piece of Celotex foam board in that spot instead (much thinner than the loft insulation so didn't block the airflow)

 

[shelli]

slivers link above is the one I was thinking of - theres a video demo on the site too if memory serves

 

[Edwardia]

I looked at the Slithers website and it's all very well them saying they use recycled floor boards, but after the guy in the vidclip used a tool to hack away the excess, the pine slithers looked like new wood. He had to sand them and I think it would be easy to take away patina on the boards themselves.

We've experimented with cork strips and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.