Laying flagstones on earth floor

[emmagaffney]

Our family has recently inherited a stone cottage in Wales, built in 1833, and would like to reinstate an internal stone floor which has been covered up. There is just earth under the stone. My research on this website has so far has indicated that brickwork, laid tight and dry, would be a good sub-layer, but I would like to know what we should then use to re-lay the stone on to please? I'd be interested to hear any ideas regarding how to carry out this job, from the earth layer upwards. Thank you.

 

[Flyfisher]

Hi Emma, welcome to the forum.

One of our Welsh residents can probably give better advice than me but I'll kick things off by asking what the existing stone floor has been covered up with and is it possible to simply remove this without disturbing the underlying stones, thus leaving the original stone floor in situ on the earth as (it seems) originally constructed?

 

[emmagaffney]

Thank you for the prompt reply. The stone had been covered with plastic, newspaper and carpet, so we have removed that as it was causing so much dampness on the floor itself and up the walls. We are hoping things will have dried out a bit by the next time we visit the cottage in a few weeks. I'm guessing that the long-term moisture level will determine what, if any, amendment we need to make to the stone sub-layer. Unfortunately, the flagstones are uneven and whilst we're not looking for perfection, they are currently a tripping hazard. Also, there are some small sections missing. So, we need to resolve both these issues. As well as dealing with those issues, my main concern is as to how I can get a solid enough base for the flagstones that will allow any grouting (with a lime mortar?) to stay in place. Hope that gives a better picture. Thank you.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Are you sure they would cause a trip? Or are your expectations too high?

Is it possible to post a picture? My flags are all over the place but we never trip.

 

[emmagaffney]

Thank you, I shall take another look and re-assess. Unfortunately, the cottage is a 2 hour drive away, so it's hard to remember exactly how it looked. This is a downfall of DIY-at-a-distance!

 

[Schoolmarm]

They sound fab and so does the cottage.

 

[Flyfisher]

The stone had been covered with plastic, newspaper and carpet, so we have removed that as it was causing so much dampness on the floor itself and up the walls. We are hoping things will have dried out a bit by the next time we visit the cottage in a few weeks.

I'd be fairly confident that the plastic covering was preventing moisture from evaporating and thus causing the floor to be very wet. Think of your skin, which loses moisture all the time yet remains (mainly) dry. But pull on a pair of rubber gloves and your hands will become sweaty within minutes because of lack of ventilation trapping the moisture. I'd be very surprised if your floor is not a lot drier when you next visit, though you may find lots of condensation on the windows in this cold weather if the cottage is all closed up, depending on how well it is otherwise ventilated, but this should only be a temporary issue while things dry out.

Ideally, the cottage should be opened up to let lots of air waft through and help the drying out process, but I appreciate the problems with that if you're not close. Not to worry though, time is a great healer and with all that plastic lifted things will start to find a new equilibrium. Just don't expect it to dry out overnight - indeed, it's probably best that it doesn't.

Do take lots of photos. Whether you choose to post them or not (though, as 'marm has suggested, it would be helpful) they will form an invaluable record of progress for you. It can often be difficult to remember the exact state of things weeks or months ago and it's always good to be reminded of the progress being made.

 

[AMc]

<Tedious warning>
If you rip the floor up and then relay then you should insulate underneath to meet Building Regulations Part L1B. That would require digging down some way to add insulation and if you need it to be breathable (and it sounds like you should) then you'd need to investigate those solutions which need a willing builder or an expert installer. Digging down in old buildings can be problematic if the walls have little or no foundations, then you're into underpinning too and a world of other issues.

You could always break the law anyway, but you might find a building company unwilling to do this if they expect the work to be inspected or the Building Control Officer may drop in on them.

If you repair what's there then you'll be fine. BC definition of repair is often taken as less than 25% of the total thermal element e.g. the floor.
</tedious warning>

 

[robgil]

you could just 'repair' 25 percent of it at a time could you not?

 

[chuckey]

If you want a quick and dirty job, lift the high stones, remove some earth, replace stones. if you lightly rake the top surface, it will give a bit of elasticity to get them even. A 4lb rubber mallet is useful for this!
I dug out, put in 4" of the C stuff, a DPC, 2" of foam, 22mm T&G P5 flooring board then re-layed the flags on mortar. The T&G is just to allow you to manipulate the flags without wrecking the foam, if you know what you are doing, a couple of scaffolding boards would do.
To lift the flags easily, get a yard or two of HI-TENSILE fencing wire. Fashion square loops out of it, say about 6" square, close the square by twisting the ends together, then you should be able to get the edge of the square down between the old flags right up against a corner then twist the loop through its vertical axis and the bottom of it will sit across and under a corner, repeat for an adjacent corner, now you can lift an individual flag.
For pointing, fill the joint to within 6mm of the top surface with pea shingle or sharp sand (like pavoirs), point on top of it. My garden patio has lasted 20 years + with this method, also flags can be removed by breaking up the pointing and scraping the pea shingle out( I've done it!).
Frank

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Emma, a warm welcome to the forum.

I had a similar problem to you (and isn't it a delightful find when you life the carpet and polythene!)

We made the mistake of lifting ours and relaying in a lime screed with under-floor heating. In many ways I wish I'd just levelled the worst and left them alone. The soil underneath was absolutely bone dry and whilst I love the look of the floor, I am plagued by the knowledge that I lifted a floor that had happily been there for a couple of hundred years at least.

I think now (with the benefit of a few more years period property ownership under my belt) I would have had a much more cautious and conservative approach. After all nothing much is going to happen if you delay a while whilst you consider your options.

I would think very carefully before following Frank's method - introducing concrete and a DPC will prevent any moisture transfer through the floor in future and may well push it to the walls to cause damp problems there.

If I were you I would clean the floor so it looks lovely, live with it for a few months and see how you feel in the spring when things are much drier and you've learned not to trip over the raised bits.

Whatever you do, please post us some pics on here - of both your new house and the floor. We're a bit like vampires and need new blood every now and then!

 

[Moo]

A lot of the flags in our hallway and the pamments in the breakfast room had to come up so that things like drains and pipework could be laid beneath them. We (or, rather, our builder) put them back straight on the earth from whence they'd come, and everything has been right as rain for the past dozen years.

 

[vicky whitworth]

How I wish I had higgledy piggledy (?) wibbly wobbly floors and not horrid slabs of concrete laid on plastic (not laid by me I hasten to say) with all the soul gone out of it. I envy you your uneven floor. I'd really urge you to live with it and see how you get on. It's amazing how quickly us humans adapt to things - you soon get to know instinctively where you need to pick up your feet, step up, step down or in the case of our place DUCK! One retina detached by cracking my skull on a low beam and emergency eye surgery was all I needed. I've never hit my head on that beam since

 

[MatthewC]

...The stone had been covered with plastic, newspaper and carpet, so we have removed that as it was causing so much dampness on the floor itself and up the walls...

Hi Emma. I have a similar sort of issue with a Victorian black and red quarry tile floor which is mostly covered by some bitumenous stuff, newspaper, old hessian-backed flooring etc. Apart from all the good advice above - especially not to do anything too quickly - have you checked the levels of the floor and the earth outside? The ground and path outside mine was at least six inches above the floor level, so the dampness is hardly surprising. You really need the floor five or six inches above the ground, so I need to drop the ground level by a foot or so.

Earth can be dug out quite easily and the wall certainly started to dry quite quickly, but now I've got to tackle the concrete. The trouble is this room will be our kitchen so doing anything major to the floor will affect our moving in date. The base of the walls also have a lot of impervious cement "plaster" which is rock hard and just forces the damp higher up the wall, so all that is going as well.

 

[emmagaffney]

Thank you - I've been overwhelmed by all your friendly and helpful replies. I shall bear in mind all your suggestions next time I visit the cottage. I feel more positive now about being able to leave the floor laid onto the bare earth; after all, I don't fancy having to carry new sub-layer materials up the 1 mile grass track to the cottage, as my old car can't handle it. With respect to the last reply, yes, there may be some earth build-up on one of the external walls which we are going to check and we may also need to construct a French drain as the hillside runs down to this wall. I have no plans to introduce a DPM or concrete, as I think the cottage will help itself out now that moisture is not being trapped inside. I'm hoping that my late grandad, whose cottage it was, would be happy with these ideas. I shall let you know how things go, and I'll take some pictures in the meantime. Thank you very much, Emma.

 

[katied]

Hello, this is my first time on here and as I have a simlar problem I was wondering how you were getting on. Last week I took possession of a 19th Century Welsh Cottage. The front of the house is original and the rear a 40 year old extension. My problem is that after we went in we pulled up the carpet in the living room and revealed a perfect black and red quarry tile floor which I suspect is laid on earth. It is perfectly even and immaculate. I have never seen one in such good condition and although I know they are cold and hard I am really, really reluctant to pull it up as advised by our local damp proofing expert. Does anyone out there think this is really necessary? We are currently pulling off the delightful 1970's hardboard mock tongue & groove cladding and the feel is that the damp is drying out nicely. I personally don't want to touch the floor. My partner is of the same mind but is not too keen on the tiles. I believe that once he see's how beautiful they can look in a living room I can persuade him otherwise. My problem is convincing the builder that the floor should stay intact and that a DPM is not vital in the front of the house. The rear extension is not of particular interest as it is block and has NO redeeming qualities at all so I would imagine digging up the floor and doing a DPM would not do any harm..

Please help. I am far from an expert but I'm really keen on retaining some character

 

[JoceAndChris]

Whatever you do, do not allow that lovely sounding floor to be pulled up. It's entirely unnecessary. I've yet to hear a case of the damp proofing merchants being right, they just want your hard earned cash, and never worry about the loss of historic fabric.
I would imagine quarry tiles would be more difficult to keep intact if you were prising them up - there is significant risk of breaking.
There are lots and lots of ways to address damp that do not involve tampering with an historic floor. In my house, the bits where flagstones are laid on earth are the healthy bits - where modern methods and flooring have been used there are problems as this pushes the damp into the walls.
As for your partner not being keen on the tiles, I think sometimes people need warming up to imagining they can live with something they hadn't ever thought about before - period property magazines, with pretty illustrations of said feature, can really help - as can seeing similar floors in historic properties you might visit. And if you can't persuade him to like it you might consider a rug which keeps the edges revealed.
Congratulations on your find and welcome to PPUK!

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Katie - A warm welcome to the forum.

My problem is convincing the builder that the floor should stay intact and that a DPM is not vital in the front of the house.

You need to remind your builder who works for whom - and if he doesn't like it, that he is very welcome to go and find other employment in these straitened times. He already sounds like he doesn't have the first clue about old buildings. If he is the typical "rip it up love and replace with plastic and concrete" brigade, I would be concerned about what other damage he will do to your 19thC house.

Leave the floor alone would be my advice - it sounds beautiful, and hasn't been causing significant problems it would seem. A DPC is much more likely to actually cause problems, by pushing damp elsewhere. At the present our floor is breatheable. This is a Good Thing.

It has been there for well over a hundred years; to rip it up and relace with a DPM and concrete will deny it to others after you.

 

[MdB]

The rear extension is not of particular interest as it is block and has NO redeeming qualities at all so I would imagine digging up the floor and doing a DPM would not do any harm..

Adding a DPM to the floor can make the base of your walls damp. It happened in our house though having a plaster layer bridging the DPM didn't help.

If there is a DPC in the wall - which is likely if it is block - then make sure that it and the DPM are joined as well as is possible and that there is nothing bridging either. Adding a DPM to the floor will make the ground under the DPM a lot wetter and this damp will try to escape around the edges. If it butts up to an old wall then the wall can end up damper. (Do not try fitting an injected DPC to an old wall. The view here is that they don't work)

It is worth reading the Damp FAQ here: http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6777

 

[simon.d]

Does anyone out there think this is really necessary? We are currently pulling off the delightful 1970's hardboard mock tongue & groove cladding and the feel is that the damp is drying out nicely. I personally don't want to touch the floor. My partner is of the same mind but is not too keen on the tiles. I believe that once he see's how beautiful they can look in a living room I can persuade him otherwise. My problem is convincing the builder that the floor should stay intact and that a DPM is not vital in the front of the house.

French drains would probably help with any damp, as they lower the water table around the house, thereby reducing the height rising damp could otherwise reach.. Which is ideally kept below the floor!.. Make something like the following right around the house, allowing for run off to lower ground: