Kitchen floor of many layers...

[edeneden]

Appreciate any advice please.(photos attached)

I have a small Victorian terrace cottage with a kitchen added to back at some point in time 1930s? and a bathroom added to that in the 1960s. All part of kitchen/diner now.
Been having ongoing damp problems, tackled from the outside of the house (lower geode levels, gutters, leaks etc but still having issues. This weekend I lifted a laminate floorboard to find a swimming pool of water underneath. Ended up removing 6 layers of laminated floors, carpet, lino, cardboard, vinyl tiles etc etc all of which were sopping wet. I'm left with concrete floor in the old kitchen part with lots of black tacky glue from lino tiles and a lumpy concrete old hearth area. There is about a meter of quarry tiles in the centre, and in the old bathroom area hideous marble-type tiles about an inch thick, laying on compacted hardcore, with rough concrete smeared on top of most of them. A couple of places in the concrete area are broken and there is uneven brick below which is very soft and damp.

I know I need to leave it all to dry out before I do anything. Firstly how long do I leave it to dry assuming I've found the reason for the damp?
Can you advise what is the best thing to do next. Should I have the whole lot screeded over what now exists and lay some tiles/slates on that? If so with concrete or lime or what...? Have read lots about houses needing to breathe (although inside walls were plastered with gypsum and outside rendered before I moved here). Should I lift all the marble/quarry tiles found first though and drop the level down to hardcore? I will have to get professionals in to sort out when I've saved up although will do as much prep as I can.

 

[Zebra]

Yes, tricky, but you've done the right thing so far in removing the modern floor coverings and letting the whole lot dry out.
Next you have to tackle the problem at source: where is the water coming from? External ground levels too high? Faulty drainage?
Don't just screed over what is left, or the same problem will arise again. Is there a dpc in the walls? If there is, then you might stand some chance of installing one in the floor according to the modern method. If not, then a breathable limecrete floor might be best.

 

[edeneden]

Thanks for the reply Zebra.

DPC was done as a condition of mortgage 18 years ago. I think ground level was too high, but I lowered it last winter so now about 6 inches below floor level. Have tackled leaking outside pipes and gutters although have a bit of gutter to have redone as not adequate. I still have a bit of penetrating damp around window which I will get resealed. I'm hoping that it was accumulated water from all these previous issues that has just not had a chance to dry out. No apparent pipe leaks internally.

I won't do anything on the floor until I'm sure damp is sorted but I don't want to spend lots of money having the floor sorted only to put the wrong materials down and cause further issues.

 

[DavidB]

I'd like to uncover the brick and get the rest of the floor to that level and then work out what to put on it. First I would try to dig a test pit for each type of floor covering I.e. marble / quarry tiles and work out what's under them. I'd make small test pits carefully to avoid damaging any dpc. Are the walls damp at the base and is the skirting board rotten? If they are then I wouldn't be surprised if there was no dpc.

I have a cement floor and in places I found it was covering soft red brick - which I think are the original flooring. Some of the internal wall sole plates was really rotten and damp when I first uncovered it. I cut away some of the cement where the worse of the damp was - it was a tiny trench and basically just broke the seal of the screed, but it really improved the situation. Similarly I just took off the cement render on a small internal plinth wall and this created a little trench where the screed had been laid after the render was appled to the wall. I re-applied new lime render but didn't fill the trench in and net result is a dry floor by simply breaking the seal of the floor with the wall! Not saying you will be that lucky - but it might be worth trying in a small section.

 

[Zebra]

Might be worth digging the whole lot out, installing a new insulated concrete slab with damp proof membrane, then screed -if the existing floors are not very old/historic/worth saving. The join between the dpc installed 18 years ago and the dpm would have to be carefully considered, but would be doable. I did something similar in my 1940s bathroom.