Dry rot or wet rot?

[Mercury00]

The floor is fooked on my new house and whatever kind of rot it is was not picked up by the independent damp survey I paid for can anyone identify for me whether this is wet or dry rot?



The ground below the floor isn't wet but the carpet has sucked up moisture:

[Mercury00]

Oh fking hell. I'm just reading about dry rot and it says the spores are a fine, rust-coloured powder. My whole chimney breast is covered in that but I didn't know what it was. But I also have this on my walls:



How can a damp surveyor not spot things like this??

I've just found a link that says this is penetrating damp, which would cause the rot. Something that was picked up on the building survey was missing mortar on the chimney.

Edited by Mercury00 on Sunday 29th May 15:41

[Mercury00]

The small print of the survey says that it gives no guarantees to the accuracy of the survey and that it's basically an estimation. But he does clearly state that no movement was present in the floor using the 'heel bounce' test. This is totally untrue, there was a good inch of movement on the floor, hence me pulling up the boards.

I found him on Which? And he was fking useless. I wonder if the bank would've given me the full mortgage if they knew the extent of the problems?

[Mercury00]

There's nothing above it though, the floor is at the bottom of the stairs. There's a radiator not far away but it doesn't look like it has ever leaked, plus you'd expect the floor to have dried out by now.

Edit: Actually now that you mention it, the next joist back, underneath the adjoining wall, is worse than this. But where could water come from to make the floor wet? It looks like only these two joists in this tiny three foot area are rotted.

Edited by Mercury00 on Sunday 29th May 18:30

[Mercury00]

I don't have internet at the moment so can't put these up properly, but have a click on this album. It's four photos showing the area around the rot and the proximity to the radiator. Let me know what you think.

http://imgur.com/a/nDURc

[Mercury00]

No air bricks in opposing walls, only two on the front of the building. Someone built their own extension on the rear with a solid concrete base running the full width of the building, so nowhere for air bricks to go.

[Mercury00]

Are those plastic radiator pipes unusual? Could they have been the source of the leak and been replaced?

[Mercury00]

I've just double checked and there are definitely no air bricks on the extension/ rear of the house. How big of a job is it to put those in?

[Mercury00]

It's a terraced, unfortunately. Still it seems less scary than I first thought when I found it.

Thanks for the replies so far.

[Mercury00]

Sorry to go over this again, we're talking about this being an old leak, so shouldn't it have dried out? The area smells damp and mouldy. I can't tell if it still feels damp or just soft and cold.

[Mercury00]

I was talking to my neighbour and he reminded me that the radiators haven't been in for that long, hence those pipes. The house had storage heaters before, so now I'm a bit more concerned about where the rot is.

However, that exact spot was where the back door was until the conservatory was put up, so maybe that had something to do with it.

[Mercury00]

I mentioned before that I can't tell if it's wet or just soft and cold, but it definitely smells damp and musty.

Sorry, I don't know much about these things and didn't know about the radiators being newish. I'm just updating this as I discover things.

[Mercury00]

I'm not sure which problem to address first. I can probably do the joists myself, but is there much point when I don't have air bricks? The house has hardwood floors, so that would need to come out and the concrete floor in the back of the house dug out for vents.

[Mercury00]

Well, it was quite a bit worse than it first looked. I pulled up a few more boards and the joists were ruined



I decided to stand on them at this point, which resulted in a pile of wood!



So I've replaced two joists, all the flooring and the first two stair risers. I can still smell damp/ rot and I'm now worried about the rest of the house.

[Mercury00]

This is cuboidal cracking this is what was left of one joist.

[Mercury00]

So what's cause this if not dry rot? Just moisture?