Floorboards

[Anonymous]

Hello, We have inherited a scottish farmhouse about 200+ years old.
Can anybody give advise on 1" thick and 6-8 wide pine floorboards. Most of them appear to be in good order but when we removed the 1950s fire surrounds the boards around where the original hearth stone used to be, have suffered from severe woodworm and are quite soft and spongy. When we pulled some of this away it looks although the joists are sitting right on top of black earth which is slightly damp. Can we take the good floorboards up and re-lay them? And what do we need to do with the ground underneath.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, you could take up the good floorboards and relay them, but why would you want to? The best plan is simply to do a repair job on the rotted floorboards. Cut away any rotted timber, and then ask a local timber merchant or joiners to machine you some to match. Make sure you order plenty for the whole repair job on the first order, because (unless you're lucky enough to have standard size boards) machine setting will probably be the majority of the cost, and you don't want to have to repeat it.
When you fit the replacement boards (or part boards) make sure that any join occurs in the middle of a joist, so that the ends of both boards are sitting on and fixed to a firm base.
Joists sitting on the earth is not unusual. Provided they are adequately supported at each end, it's probably a good plan to scrape away a slight gap underneath each one, so that it's not in contact with the soil, then slip a strip of damproof material underneath. But don't cover the whole earth base with that material - just underneath each joist. That way the earth can still breathe. Most importantly, also make sure that the entire cavity under the floor is well ventilated by air bricks (or similar) at regular intervals in the outside walls. Also be sure that the outside of the air bricks is not obscured by earth.
I hope this helps.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you David. Do you know anything about fireplaces?

 

[Anonymous]

I think they're places where you have fires, aren't they? <IMG SRC="http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/discussing/smileys/wink.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="">

What did you want to ask? There are lots of other people on this forum, so if I can't help you I'm sure someone else can.

 

[Anonymous]

The house has four downstairs fireplaces. Of the three which I would like to replace there were 1950's tiled fireplaces. I have removed those and behind there are stones which according to family members held cast iron grates. The stones are fairly loose and I can see in behind those that there is quite a large open space made from (I think)sandstone. I would quite like to keep this large size but the builder says that if I remove the loose stones it will not be strong enough on its own and I should fill up the fireplaces with concrete and blocks to form a 16" fireplace. What do you think?

 

[Anonymous]

It's the kind of situation that's very difficult to describe, Sue, and very difficult to give an opinion on from a description. Is it possible you could post a picture?
When you say that you removed the tiled fireplace, did you also remove a fireback and find the loose stones behind it? If so, then it's possible that they were simply there to fill up the spare space behind the fireback - this is usual practice.
However, your builder is on site and I'm not, so I am very hesitant to gainsay his suggestion. As I said above, a picture would be a big help.