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Some context: 1930s house, groundfloor is all concrete with a thick layer of bitumen on top, most of the house is floorboards that were laid on top of the bitumen (probably once it was still hot...) and nailed down with flooring brads. Yes, apparently that was a thing back in the 1930s... whole street has houses like this.
Just had my front door pushed out into the storm porch to create space on the hall, as part of the job the floor was levelled with concrete.
Had the floor finish guys come in the other day to do the flooring on another section of the house, asked them about the prep work needed for this hall as well - they said the newest floorboard (seen in the pictures) was fairly loose and that just needed to be fixed before they would plywood/screed the area - FAIR ENOUGH. Pulled the floorboard up to find what looked like a thin layer roofing felt glued on the back of the floorboard, upon further inspection, also realised this layer of felt was under some of the concrete that had been laid before as well! Ended up pulling all of this old concrete out with my hands as it was all loose and crumbly.
What I found happens to be a mix of bitumen, concrete, a couple of holes that need to be filled - Please find all pictures attached.
I have a lot of questions regarding this subfloor, but the biggest one I have is: How do I go about making this good? A friend is saying we should just level with concrete and call it a day, but seeing as the DPM seems a bit compromised in a few areas, this is what I was thinking (pardon if full of nonsense, not very experienced!):
I suspect the felt was put in place as some sort of DPC, but it was never fixed properly so was easily pulled out. The last picture shows some of the concrete with the said felt.
The house has never shown signs of damp or rotten floorboards, location in the country and geography might have a say on that, so I am not too concerned over that.
Looking for suggestion on how to approach this!
Just had my front door pushed out into the storm porch to create space on the hall, as part of the job the floor was levelled with concrete.
Had the floor finish guys come in the other day to do the flooring on another section of the house, asked them about the prep work needed for this hall as well - they said the newest floorboard (seen in the pictures) was fairly loose and that just needed to be fixed before they would plywood/screed the area - FAIR ENOUGH. Pulled the floorboard up to find what looked like a thin layer roofing felt glued on the back of the floorboard, upon further inspection, also realised this layer of felt was under some of the concrete that had been laid before as well! Ended up pulling all of this old concrete out with my hands as it was all loose and crumbly.
What I found happens to be a mix of bitumen, concrete, a couple of holes that need to be filled - Please find all pictures attached.
I have a lot of questions regarding this subfloor, but the biggest one I have is: How do I go about making this good? A friend is saying we should just level with concrete and call it a day, but seeing as the DPM seems a bit compromised in a few areas, this is what I was thinking (pardon if full of nonsense, not very experienced!):
- Clean up the area.
- Fill bigger hole with some rubble and concrete.
- Layer of bitumen where required (or even the whole area for good measure?)
- Level whole area with concrete.
- Fix the horizontal floorboard with strong adhesive once area is levelled.
I suspect the felt was put in place as some sort of DPC, but it was never fixed properly so was easily pulled out. The last picture shows some of the concrete with the said felt.
The house has never shown signs of damp or rotten floorboards, location in the country and geography might have a say on that, so I am not too concerned over that.
Looking for suggestion on how to approach this!