floor structure in victorian terrace

[arl]

hello, a quick question. What type of floor structure would you expect in the vestibule hall of a typical victorian terraced house (the area by the front door usually laid with geometric tiles). Ours appears to be solid, but the holes in the front door step look like air vents and suggest it is a solid floor over joists. Is this likely to be the original structure? and if so how was it built

thanks

 

[Feltwell]

My house is from 1899 has both types - solid floor in the kitchen and scullery, and suspended timber in the lounge and dining room. However, my hallway, which is tiled, is over the cellar and the cellar ceiling looks remarkably like cast in-situ concrete - it is a certainly a "cast" floor, you can see the imprint and grain of the timber planks that were used for the shuttering as you look at the cellar ceiling.

Could you have a blocked-off cellar or coal-hole under that area?

 

[Penners]

An awful lot of houses that started life with suspended floors have had these removed at some stage and replaced with poured concrete. So what you've found may be an example of this.

 

[Feltwell]

An awful lot of houses that started life with suspended floors have had these removed at some stage and replaced with poured concrete. So what you've found may be an example of this.

Agreed, but I'm 100% sure mine is original. The house was owned by a brewery and rented out from day 1 until 1988, and had very little done to it - nearly everything original survived, except for the range, 2 fireplaces and 1 sash. The floor has a large cast iron beam on 1 side to support it against the cellar steps, original tiles on top and is identical to the neighbours house.

A builder is doing up the house next to mine - the previous owner removed the floorboards to put concrete floors in, but left the joists in place. So you have a 3' deep solid concrete floor (must have cost a fortune in concrete!) with no dpm and with completely rotten sodden joists embedded in it, like tram tracks. The builder isn't exactly being sympathetic to an old house but even he has been amazed by the level of bodging.

Arl, you say "usually laid with geometric tiles" - so yours isn't then? Any clue as to if the floor is original or has been replaced?

 

[chuckey]

Could be that the air holes just vent in to the cavity?
Frank

 

[Lime]

It's quite common to have a mixture of flooring in 100 year old houses. It appears to me that when the houses were constructed there was some variation offered to purchasers very much like today.
So a tiled floor would often be thrown in where a suspended floor was originally planned.
In my house the hallway is tiled on a solid floor.
The constituents of the "solid" base of the floor appears to be anything they had around at the time.
(Viewed from under the suspended flooring of the downstairs rooms.)
In the foot of one doorway wood shavings are clearly visible amongst broken tile, brick and slate.

I'd investigate the vent under the front door step to see if air is flowing through it and also if there is a cavity directly behind it.

 

[arl]

Hi, Thanks for the responses. Our house also has solid floors in the kitchen and scullery with wood throughout the rest of the house, except the vestibule part of the hall. Whilst our house doesn’t have geometric tiles any longer, many of the houses in our road do (all to the same design). I believe that it used to have them as I have found a lot of tiles buried in the garden. It does appear to be a solid floor above a cavity. Is this likely to be supported on wooden joists or brick pillars? I am asking as we have dry rot and I need to ascertain whether I need to check underneath this floor void (I’d rather not dig this up if I don’t have to). Given the number of Victorian terraces still in existence I’m really surprised I can’t find this information on the web. Maybe increasing the size of the ventilation holes will allow me to visually determine what is going on under there.