Earth Floors

[marie.beal]

We are in the process of buying a Georgian farmhouse and the walls had a damp proof course back in the 1980s. The floor in the kitchen is quarry tiles laid directly onto earth, which is very uneven and very dirty.The kitchen itself is a 1980s plastic MFI concoction.
The kitchen is in desperate need of a re-fit, our surveyor advised us that we could just concrete/pitchmastic the floor to level it, or fit under floor heating without any future complications,( he seemed to be saying as the walls had been damp proofed it wouldn't be a problem) However, everything we have read suggests that we should maintain a floor that can breathe in order to prevent future damp problems. Should we limecrete and stick with a brick floor, all be it not very practical to clean in a kitchen , in order to protect the bones of the building ,or should we proceed as advised by the surveyor and concrete over it, which would be more aesthetically pleasing and practical ,but may not be the best for the building?

 

[MikeG]

Welcome Marie.

Damp proof membranes and a concrete floor are a perfectly good solution in the right circumstances, but those circumstances are never when it is a partial solution. For a DPM to not make the problem worse it must be continuous over the whole footprint of the building and be lapped with a continuous viable physical (not chemical) damp proof course (DPC). If you can't achieve that, then you need an alternative approach. If you can achieve that then fine............you can consider this approach, but you'll want to take into account all of the implications for the historical elements of the building. Putting in a partial DPM that doesn't fully lap with a proper DPC simply pushes the moisture out to the edges, giving you a concentrated damp problem to deal with at the edge of the plastic.

There is a "sticky" in another part of the forum on damp issues, which you should read carefully.

 

[MatthewC]

Hi Marie, welcome

My house had quarry tiles directly onto the ground, and I laid a limecrete floor with limestone flags, so that the whole thing is breathable. It has been perfect since then (5 years ago) and I am very happy with it. The difficulty with limecrete is that it is hard to get anyone who can do this, so I did it myself with two useful young lads and using advice from Mike Wye. If you do this you really need to do it before you move in! If you want you can fit UFH but as it is naturally warmer than glazed tiles you can do without - I fitted a small bit of electric UFH and don't use it.

If your surveyor suggested a concrete floor, I would suggest that you might have the wrong surveyor for an old property! Concrete/pitchmastic is one of the ways of keeping the damp out by making the house into a sealed box, which is just not how an old house works! I find all those TV programmes sad when someone buys an old house and then tries to make it modern, and totally ruins it. Why don't they just buy a modern house and make it look old outside?

Matthew
(see my blog - click on the Contact thing on the right, and the blog option is a blue circle)

 

[88v8]

Welcome to the Damp and Other Things forum.

As mike say, one can't graft a concrete floor into an old building and not expect problems.
When we bought our C17 cottage, there was a concrete floor/dpm in the sitting room, and around the perimiter of the room it was so damp that not only the edge of the carpet but also the Gripperods, had rotted.
No doubt the concrete floor seemed a great idea when it was installed, and indeed for a year of three afterwards.

We had the floor replaced with limecrete.

Imagine that situation in your kitchen - don't know if you intend a modern kitchen with units or a freestanding kitchen with proper dressers & cupboards but if the former then imagine all the damp being pushed out to the perimeter to end up beneath your units.

The finish to a limecrete floor does not have to be brick.
A stone or tile or brick floor breathes through the joints, not through the stone, so what is essential is that it be laid and pointed/grouted in lime - NHL, not a mixture of hydrated and cement. No cement!! No standard tile adhesive!!
Any specialist limecrete contractor will know how to lay the stone or tile finish, and limecrete suppliers such as Ty Mawr will be able to give you the names of contractors whom they regularly supply.

Even so, given that the floor will potentially breathe over its whole area, if you do go for modern fitted units they need to have plenty of vents in the plinths so that there is decent air flow to prevent the growth of mould.

Have no views on ufh, except that it's just another piece of technology to go wrong.

Hope your purchase goes OK, and look forward to seeing you on the forum.

Ivor

 

[Roger H]

Is the building Listed? If so, the CO is going to have a view on this.

 

[MikeG]

......Have no views on ufh, except that it's just another piece of technology to go wrong.......

I'm 100% with the rest of Ivor's advice, but not this part. UFH is a simple continuous pipe set in the screed or (ask Ty Mawr first!) the limecrete. There is less to go wrong with UFH than there is with radiators. It produces a beautiful even warmth, and exploits the thermal mass of the floor. However, don't expect it to work in the same way as radiators, as it is a slow-reaction low-temperature heating system (it works at approx 35 Celcius). The only negative I can possibly come up with is that wooden furniture in the vicinity of the cluster of pipes leading to the manifold would be subject to the same sort of stressses induced by being placed next to a radiator. Oh, and you can't just drill holes in the floor willy-nilly.

 

[Flyfisher]

Another point about underfloor heating - unless it is installed on top of an insulating layer then a lot of the energy will be wasted heating up the ground beneath the floor. I'm a bigger fan of UFH than I thought I would be, having had it installed under our new kitchen extension and, as MikeG rightly says, it gives a lovely even heat. But I can't see how it could be efficiently retrofitted to an existing floor without major disruption.