Help needed - Woodworm

[divebubble]

New here and about to embark on our 1st Grade II house purchase. Have has FSS and woodworm has been found to be active...still love the house though! Treatment specialist suggested removing all plaster work (presuming it to be lathe and plaster) and treat all beams accordingly, then insulate and replaster. Easy me thinks however, heres the dilemma. Does removing the plaster to treat the woodworm count as an alteration or repair for LBC, and does the replastering need to be done with LBC or still covered under the fixing the repair element. Interestingly we had confirmation from the local conservation officer to insulate once the plaster work is down, but no mention of the type of replastering needed. Replace like for like or with plaster board.

Any advice would be welcome as although not new to property renovation, new to the world of Grade II.

Cheers

Divebubble & Fish!

 

[MdB]

Do a search on woodworm here - there are lots of posts. Also look for stuff posted by Matt Green as he is our expert here.

I'm not an expert myself but from memory the question you need to ask yourself is why you have woodworm? The normal answer is because you have a damp problem. Cure the damp and you cure the woodworm at the same time. Spraying isn't recommended here due to the nasty chemicals used and because removing walls etc to spray does more damage than the woodworm. Damp is far more of a danger and needs to be sorted. I, like many people here, had woodworm (and damp) though the woodworm may not have been active. I have cured the damp and done absolutely nothing about the woodworm. I have plenty of old holes which I'm not worrying about and no new holes as far as I've found so far.

 

[divebubble]

MdB

Thanks for your advice, will look through previous posts and Matt Greens postings. From the FSS there is no damp issue and the wood that is showing active worm holes is bone dry, understand that stopping the cause is important but if the cause isn't damp then how do we get rid of the woodworm? Structually its not a problem as yet but we haven't done a full investigation by removing test areas on all floors, that will be done once we are in the house, well owners of it at least!

DB & Fish!

 

[MdB]

I can't answer that I'm afraid as I don't have the knowledge. I'm told that woodworm needs rotting wood to feed, hence the need for it to be damp. Hopefully Matt will be along in a while to give you words of wisdom.

 

[Flyfisher]

I didn't think the wood had to be rotting as such, merely that it needed to have a certain level of moisture, below which woodworm cannot survive. But I claim no expertise either and am merely filling in time until Matt arrives.

 

[divebubble]

Help me OB1 'Matt Green' Keobi your my only hope!!!

DB

 

[Matt Green]

Treatment specialist suggested removing all plaster work (presuming it to be lathe and plaster) and treat all beams accordingly, then insulate and replaster.

Those aren't the words of advice you are looking for.

Seriously...? This isn't advice from a 'specialist' to address a problem in a listed building- it's vandalism disguised as objective expert opinion wrapped in a sales quote. By treatment specialist you mean commissioned chemical treatment salesman, right (they left you a survey report with a quote)? Their only tool is chemical treatment, and:

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
- Abraham Maslow

If it appears active and there is no water leak now, then:

*It must have been wet (not damp, wet) at some point for female insects to have laid eggs- wood moisture content greater than 25%.

*For the adults to have developed and emerged the wood moisture content must have been greater then 13% for a while. That can happen due to low air temperatures reducing the relative humidity of the surroundings. Has the house been empty for a while? Is this area in a loft, particularly an insulated one, or only unheated or exposed area?

or;

*It's not active, the SS is stupid or crooked and the specialist is stupid and/or needs to make his sales target this month, what with Christmas coming. If the timbers are in an out-of-the-way place where no light falls, the frass (bore dust) will not oxidise quickly- so it will appear fresh. It changes colour in UV light, no UV means no colour change and it is hard to date the activity. To be fair, it's tough anyway.

If you take down the lath and plaster you will be inflicting more damage to the house than the woodworm by several orders of magnitude. If it is active the damage will be in the sapwood section of the timbers, which in an average house old enough to be listed will not be structural sections and pose no real threat to the integrity of the fabric. Where are the timbers in question and where are they in the house? What treatment is being recommended and for what insect? I'm assuming this is furniture beetle, but if it's deathwatch then more questions might follow.

If the timbers really are bone dry I have a strong suspicion you are looking to treat something which is not there any more. Apply common sense, a more elegant weapon from a more civilized age, before you pay someone to damage your house for you.

M.

 

[JohnB]

Slightly off topic maybe, but the surveyor who looked at my last place, a 1950s bungalow, found damp, and recommended someone who could deal with it :evil:. If there was damp it must have been caused by the concrete path that was level with the damp course, or one of the other things the surveyor missed :evil:. It cost me a lot of money and years of disruption to get over having a perfectly good building trashed by bloody so called professionals :evil:.

I think, from my experience, it's a good idea to think carefully about any such advice, and do some research, before going along with it.

 

[Lime]

divebubble the advice to remove all plaster work to treat woodworm in a listed building is quite absurd.
Think about it.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Hello Divebubble and a big welcome to this forum.

I hope we can save you some money here, and help protect your house into the bargain.

To add to the infinitely more experienced voices above, 2 years ago I had exactly the same situation as yourself in buying this property. One of the mortgage companies ( not our eventual one thankfully) even said they'd withold money until the woodworm, which had been found in the structural survey, was treated. We were also advised by damp companies to hack the plaster off in all the msin rooms up to 2/3 wall height, to have DP chemicals injected. Having discovered the advice on this forum, and doing some more independent research, we resisted both the woodworm treatment and the damp conmen. The house is fine, the woodworm holes had been misdiagnosed as being live. I keep a check, if I find live ones I'll paint on some stuff myself. Most importantly it's heat and ventilation that prevents these sorts of damp related problems, and making sure there aren't structural leaks.

My best advice is you live in the house a full year before you do anything drastic at all, that way you'll really get to see what the problems are, and have a chance to work out how to fix them.

 

[middi]

Hi
I presume that your Grade II is an oak framed building. As Matt as already explained woodworm eradication reports on old ( mainly oak framed) buildings are motivated en large by salesman to sell something that is totally useless.

As Matt says the sapwood of oak timbers are at times affected by woodworm activity, as soon as the hartwood is reached the activity stops. This is one of the main reason why these buildings are still standing a few hundred years after they were built. It is not unusual to see timbers on these buildings completely covered in woodworm holes, most of the holes are usually confined to the first 5 to 15 mm of the oak surface.

I can uderstand your concern if you have little knowledge as to how these buildings function, I con only comment that you should not worry too much about woodworm. I agree that an infestation in a house built completely out of softwood could be a problem and should professionally be delt with.
As to removing old fabric to treat suspected woodworm is ridiculous.

Middi

 

[divebubble]

Guys,

A big thank you for making us realise that a second opinion from a reputable firm is worth its weight in gold, Matt it was indeed a salesman doing what he does best and we have been tied up in knots thinking we are about to rip the beautiful skin off a house that has been standing for over 200 years.

It is oak beamed and the top floor (mansard roof type of top floor) has been unheated for several years, we're planning to introduce heat (central heating) to this floor and insulation to the loft (advice most welcome) to start bringing some consistent heat to a very cold area. Frost was inside the top windows when we visited a couple of weeks ago - been like this for several years we believe.

The house is in good condition considering that its been unloved for several years, our wish is to bring it back to life for our family to love and cherish without losing its amazing beauty.

Divebubble & Fish

 

[Pford75]

Welcome to the forum and hope that your purchase goes through smoothly.

Apart from the excellent advice on the woodworm, I'd echo Joce sentiment about the need to temper the natural enthusiasm when buying a new place with the need to live with the building for a bit.

Do try to resist the urge to undertake drastic work when you first move in. I'd always focus first on roof, guttering, windows and insulation before doing anything else.

Post here with any questions - I've had lots of good advice from members. We also love photos of before and after situations...so if you get chance to share some photos of your new home, we'd love to see them.

 

[MdB]

I would second those above who are suggesting posting here what you are thinking of doing before actually doing anything. This is especially true before taking things to bits as well as before putting things back together. We don't all agree on everything here but when it comes to old houses, there are a lot of people here with a lot of knowledge to give out. 5 years ago, I didn't know anything about old houses - I now know a little which is basically down to this site.

 

[Moo]

If you could give us a clue about where you are (nothing too specific, just the county, perhaps) it would be very useful when it came to things like suppliers and tradesmen in your area. You might even find that one or two of the experts are not too far away....

 

[Penners]

A big thank you for making us realise that a second opinion from a reputable firm is worth its weight in gold, Matt ...

Well done, Matt. That's another unscrupulous salesman who - we hope - has been thwarted.

divebubble - just to qualify one phrase that Matt used (in case you weren't aware): "furniture beetle" and "woodworm" are the same thing - anobium punctatum if you want to google it.

One other point - what evidence did the "specialist" give you that the woodworm is indeed active? Did he show you frass (the dust that falls from woodworm munchings)? Matt has explained that this may not be fresh.

There is another way of checking whether you have an active infestation. Assuming you buy the house, before next spring arrives paste some tissue paper over one (or more) of the areas where you suspect the infestation to be. Then wait. The season when they emerge and fly is the warm months - May to September, I believe - and if this happens your tissue paper will be punctured by the emerging beetles. So inspect it again next autumn, and you should find out whether the little blighters are active or not.

 

[CatherineB]

Hello divebubble and fish!
No words of wisdom to add, just wanted to say welcome, and reiterate what a great site you've found.
I joined a couple of months back, having bought a house a mere 100 years old or so, and everyone is really friendly and extremely helpful!

 

[Penners]

Apart from when the children squabble a bit. But a chocolate biscuit usually sorts that out. :wink:

 

[skier-hughes]

oh shut up Granddad

 

[MatthewC]

oh shut up Granddad

As a granddad-about-to-be-very-soon, I will spring to Penners' defence, although personally I prefer flapjacks.