just thought id say hello

[charlie-ia]

things are plodding along at our place, nothing really exciting to report, but just wanted to say thanks again for taking the time with all my bloomin daft questions!

did find one nice thing recently- some plaster has fallen off around one of the windows in the older part of the house. you can see handprints in the mud of the wall. whoever did it was wearing a wooly jumper when they built the wall cos you can see the imprint of the cuff very faintly where it kept riding up over the heel of their hand as they pressed the mud in! is quite remarkable. goodness knows how long ago they did it.

we think we may have dry rot too. a window has been bricked up (probably in 1922) but the frame was left in and has turned into something resembling cake crumbs. interesting white/grey tendrils creeping about under the plaster. distinct mushroomy smell. no sign of fruiting bodies though. could it be anything else?

our next stage is to get a stove, so we're putting off panicking until the place gets a bit warmer.
should we wait before replacing nearby timber? i read it can take 10 years for the dry rot to die so i thought we might get straight on with it. quick blast with a blow lamp on the walls and a slap of wood preserver on the new timber?

 

[Lime]

Hi charlie-ia.
I wouldn't believe the tales told about dry rot, they have made a lot of money for the storytellers.

Remove the old rotten wood, let the wall dry out and stop water getting in and the rot will disappear.

 

[Matt Green]

we think we may have dry rot too. a window has been bricked up (probably in 1922) but the frame was left in and has turned into something resembling cake crumbs. interesting white/grey tendrils creeping about under the plaster. distinct mushroomy smell. no sign of fruiting bodies though. could it be anything else?

Any one of the Poria type fungi, Antrodia viallantii (mine rot) Asterostroma....

should we wait before replacing nearby timber?

Nearby timber? Just replace the rotten timber.

i read it can take 10 years for the dry rot to die so i thought we might get straight on with it.

Longer if it stays wet, but in dry conditions it dies: just like any other mushroom. If it is dry rot and the strands are silvery grey, it may well already be dead.

quick blast with a blow lamp on the walls and a slap of wood preserver on the new timber?

Things have progressed since the 1920s, so no need for blow lamps. Take out the decayed timber, work out if/why it was wet, isolate any new timber from the walls with a DPM or similar. You could remove the mycelium from the walls with a wire brush too.

Really not much worth panicing about.


Matt.