Dry Rot & Damp

[Anonymous]

Sorry if this has been covered before but I've just bought an 1840s cottage that has some damp, woodworm and dry rot issues. Has anyone used the boron treatment that's meant to be environmentally friendly? Assuming we get the damp sorted do we need to treat the wood anyway?

 

[Anonymous]

When you've got the odd hour or two to spare, do a site search and read some of the many threads addressing this problem - you're not alone!

 

[Anonymous]

Poisoned borate fluids as wood protection I do not recommend at all. You must get out the dampness and still keep your house dry.

For that I recommend an IR-radiation heating, which will warm up and dry out the building structure very well and let the air temperature some degrees lower. So no condensate will come in the walls, because they remain warmer than the humidified air. Additional a permanent dry air from outside like it comes through the joints of old fashioned not airtight windows - only that can change out the daily humdified air.

The poisoned borate preparates will contaminate your woods for ever. That may cause problems also for later repair. Cut only the rotten wooden parts, repair and keep your house dry. Dry rot spores are ubiquent, only if they find enough moistured wood, the will spread as fungus / sponge.

The same with woodworms. If your wood is dry enough - under 15% - they will not settle there any more.

Some details on the link.



What to do in mouldy damp houses

 

[Anonymous]

No, you don't. Unless, maybe, the dry rot is growing on a subterrainean wall. But I'll assume that's not the case.

Find the source of water ingress and stop it. The building will dry out and there's no need for treatment. Replace timbers as appropriate.

Do you know what the water source is?

Matt Green

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for comments to date. At this stage we think there are a number of places where water is getting in and looking at fixing these. Are there any rules as to where the dry rot will appear - for example - if the dry rot appears near a front door, does this indicate that the damp is probably coming in through the door frame? or could it be coming from another site metres away?

 

[Anonymous]

Matt's advice is spot on.

I once looked at a dry rot case where the client had had the same floor ripped out and replaced twice in 8 months. I traced the water to the back of a refridgerator in the adjoining kitchen. I told them to stop the fridge leaking, scrape the obvious fungal growth off the timber and use a fan heater to dry the place out - total cost not very much excluding the cost of the fridge.

They didn't believe me but they did it, it worked and it's still fine several years later.

 

[Anonymous]

Door frames can be tricky as, like skirting boards, they don't generally have a high enough moisture content for a dry rot spore to germinate, but can easily have a moisture content high enough to sustain dry rot once it's got a hold. Also, like skirtings, door frames are prone to being made from poor quality timber which suits dry rot well, as it tends to prey on the sick and weak of the building timber world.

How do you know it's in the frame? Fruiting bodies or timber shrinkage? And where is it- top or bottom corners?

Matt Green

 

[Anonymous]

The timber that's infected by dry rot isn't actually the door frame, it's a vertical piece of wood that's about 5 cm away from the door frame in an internal wall surrounded by old bricks (a bit like a very old stud wall). I know there's dry rot because this wall was panelled with some 70s chipboard and I discovered a large mushroom underneath and the wood has crumbled to touch. My concern is where the damp is coming from!

 

[Anonymous]

Do you have any photos of the mushroom? Post one up if you do.

Have you removed the panelling to see how the fungus has grown? It grows from a specific point of germination- usually the point at which water enters the building.

Let us know what you find.

Matt Green