Rotten timbers

[charlieworld]

I wonder if anyone can help. I recently stripped back a couple of beams to discover quite a lot of wood decay. I've googled this quite extensively, but cannot decide what kind of rot it is suffering from. Quite often the wood has a hard surface, but underneath are chunks of bright yellow rotten wood. I've read that dry rot is white in colour and has spores. Does anyone know if it can be yellow? Obviously if it is dry then I need to cut it out, but 'm hoping it's not! Any advice would be very welcome.
Many thanks

 

[Moo]

My guess is that generations of woodworms have been partying like mad in the timbers.

 

[charlieworld]

Thanks , I really hope that that's all as the house is 500 years old and listed for it's wooden structure and I really don't want to have to start replacing it all!!!!!!!!

 

[MdB]

Obviously if it is dry then I need to cut it out

Matt is the expert on this but if I remember correctly what he has said in the past, don't get hung up on removing wood and / or spraying as this won't help much. The single most important thing to do is to stop the reason for why it rotted which is that it has got damp. Remove the damp and you kill the rot.

Hopefully others will confirm this for you.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Does it look like this?

We have a lot too, and yes, it's caused by woodworm. If there is structural strength left in the timbers - ie if it's not falling down - I'm not replacing it. If I were to remove all the wood that's been affected in this way a great chunk of my house would be gone!

The main thing is that the house is dry and the woodworm won't reappear.

 

[charlieworld]

Yes I think it looks like that................

 

[charlieworld]

Sorry, that image is rubbish!
Do I need to remove the affected areas or can I simply stick the regular treatment on top?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Don't remove any affected areas until you get an expert opinion, which is certainly not me!

The original timber is of course very precious and I think it's better to look at holey wood with plenty of wax lovingly rubbed in than to look at new sections spliced in. The only justification for removing the holey timber in my opinion is if there is no structural strength left in it. I had this dilemma when I was doing up the floorboards in the bedroom, my dad really wanted the ones round the edge replaced. I figured that as I'd been moving the ladder across the affected area for weeks, as I was working on the cornice and painting, the wood was still strong enough to justify keeping it.

 

[charlieworld]

Hmmm, well, a wire brush removes chunks of it so obviously not much strength left in these parts....

 

[JoceAndChris]

If it's really bad you'll have to splice in a new section. But one things I've realised living in a rather fragile old building is that just because a wire brush, or a bit of effort, can make things crumble away doesn't mean you should use that bit of effort. It's so much easier to destroy than repair. You said that the surface of your wood had a hard crust, and by digging underneath that you found rotten, dusty wood that fragments easily. It's the same with timber here, and in this thread I replaced some of the cill.

http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10389&hilit=what+is+rotten+wood

But what I learned from that was not to go disturbing the perfectly good crust and digging around for rotten wood, because I found it aplenty, and if you start pulling it out you'll have to replace more and more, which is not only a pain but also very sad.

Having said all that I'm really just a beginner with old properties and I welcome different advice.

 

[MdB]

Sorry, that image is rubbish!
Do I need to remove the affected areas or can I simply stick the regular treatment on top?

I'm not sure what you did to get the picture to appear like that. The original is fine.

 

[charlieworld]

Thank you

 

[Moo]

If there is structural strength left in the timbers

That now becomes question number one.

Number two is - how does one tell?

Be patient, and someone really knowledgeable will be along to give you some ideas.

 

[Penners]

That looks as though it's been well munched by woodworm (otherwise known as the Common Furniture Beetle or Anobium Punctatum).

You need to get the timber as dry as you can, by exposing it to ventilation and warmth (fortunately you have a balmy summer just around the corner :| ). But right now, I should rub some soft wax over a fairly large patch of the holey wood, so that the holes get filled with it. Then keep an eye on this area over the next couple of months. If the wax remains undisturbed, then the chances are that the woodworm infestation is no longer active.

Alternatively, paste some tissue paper over the area - the departing beetles will puncture the paper.

But don't delay, as the woodworm flying season is upon us.

Here's some information about woodworm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_furniture_beetle

Don't be tempted to start spraying noxious chemicals around your home right away. This may be entirely un-necessary.

As to the strength of the wood, this depends on how deep the woodworm infestation went. Have a dig about with a penknife or screwdriver - you may find that, not too far below the surface, you'll hit wood that's as hard as iron. Oak beams were invariably hugely over-specified for their task, 500 years ago, so there may be quite enough good wood remaining to ensure the stability of the structure. Of course, before you can make this decision, you need to know how much good wood is left, and what work it's doing.

Can you post a bit more pictorial information about the function of the beam(s)?

 

[charlieworld]

Thank you everyone for all your wonderful advice.
I'm so happy that nobody has said the dreaded words "dry rot" yet!

The area in question is our attic which until a couple of months ago had no insulation or heating, but plenty of damp and loose old windows. These issues have now been sorted, so I thought I was down to the last step of decorating. More fool me!

I'm cleaning up the outer layer of the wood as sympathetically as possible and yes, these are massive old beams and there is plenty of iron-strength wood left. They were previously covered in a heavy layer of white gloss..... yuck!

 

[JoceAndChris]

The first page of this thread has an excellent picture of dry rot. What you have looks nothing like.

http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10444&hilit=dry+rot

Fantastic that you've sorted out the damp in the attic, that's the main thing.

 

[charlieworld]

The rooms are in the left gable end

 

[charlieworld]

Sorry folks, why are my pictures coming out so large?

 

[MdB]

Sorry folks, why are my pictures coming out so large?

Because you are uploading images from your camera at their original resolution (number of pixels or dots) but with the quality turned right down. The second picture is 1,936px × 2,896px in size which is enormous for a website.

Before you upload, you need to resize the picture to approx 800x600 pixels or similar but with the quality turned up. If you are unsure how to do this, the easiest method is to upload the picture to an image sharing website such as flickr or imageshack and they will do the resizing for you.

If you need help on this, send me a pm.

In the meantime, here are you images:
View attachment 1

Unfortunately, I can't do anything about the quality as this has been lost.

 

[charlieworld]

Exellent, thank you.