Recent content by Deerhound

Thanks Blup. So you wouldn't treat that surface rot if the beam dries out and the roof is fixed? I'm working on finding the leak. I can't find an obvious place that rain is getting in and yesterday's rain wasn't obviously coming in anywhere. There had been an old plastic insulation bag wedged...

I've discovered a wet beam in my attic. Still trying to identify where the water is coming from but in the meantime I'd love some advice about some rot I've found on the underside of a wet beam. Photo attached. Can I treat this myself with fungicide or do I need to get an expensive specialist in?

Thanks @RandomGrinch Based on my conversation with Hardie, I think the adhesive is important in the plan to cover the gap with the steel. The thick adhesive layer acts as a kind of self levelling compound to give you a properly flat surface for the board despite having a sheet of steel over...

@RandomGrinch So, not sure this plan is going to work. The board is going to need a lot of fine cutting to get around a 1m curve in the hall and around the bottom of the stairs. Am I right in thinking that's going to be much harder with Hardie boards than ply? Also, looking much further...

Thanks RandomGrinch. It's going to be super hard to make that pocket water tight for the SLC because it's so irregular and has gaps to the subfloor all around. I had a good call just now with Hardiebacker's technical support line. The guy recommended screwing a 0.6/0.7 gauge steel sheet over...

I'm retiling my hallway. The previous tiles were on 12mm ply, laid over the Victorian floorboards. After lifting that ply, I've found a gap in the floorboards from where a doorway was moved (see link). In the gap there's the old base of the wall. The centre of it is almost but not quite level...

Thanks footprints. You're right - it isn't steel - so should be possible to cut through.

My front door sill has a metal sheet folded over it and embedded behind the tiles on the inside and into / behind the front step on the outside. The sheet is torn and jagged. I'm going to retile the inside soon, which seems like a good opportunity to replace it. But does anyone know how much of...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/GoK9u3MZssyiBN7L9 Here's the parapet from both sides. The rendered side is my neighbours. The rooves are south facing and the neighbours' west-facing side of the parapet takes most of the weather. The dark vertical lines might suggest some kind of problem in the past...

Yes, it's a parapet. It's weird though if it is from the parapet, as the damp doesn't seem to occur above skirting board level on the first floor. Can't find any damp in the party wall at loft level. I'll check again when we next get a decent bit of rain.

There's no chimney on the smelly side of the room. There's a blocked off fireplace on the other side of the room, 5m away. That chimney is open at ground floor level. Have a look at the floorplan of this house. It isn't my house but it's very similar - at least on the first floor...

Thanks for the reply foxhole. The part of the room the smell comes from is about 4 metres from the external wall. No damp problems or smells at all on the external wall itself. The roof isn't leaking and there's no measurable damp anywhere above skirting board level so it doesn't seem to be...

I've had a bad smell in my upstairs front bedroom for perhaps a year. It comes on overnight. After rain it's a damp, almost mildewy smell. When it's dry it's more musty. It seems mainly to come from around floor level in the back corner of the room. One wall in that corner is a party wall and...

I've posted this in the plastering/rendering forum too but it's a broader question so I'm reposting here. I was planning to apply insulating render (the Bauwer Light system) to an internal wall. However, on removing the previous plaster, the brickwork is in bad shape. There are a few patches...

I was planning to apply insulating render (the Bauwer Light system) to an internal wall. However, on removing the previous plaster, the brickwork is in bad shape. There are a few patches where the mortar is pretty much gone from the internal layer of bricks (it's a solid Victorian brick wall)...