A hole in my damp kitchen floor (With photos!)

[katie86]

Hello,

I've just moved into a ground floor maisonette which appears to have a bit of a problem kitchen floor and I wondered if anyone had any ideas of a) what it is, and b) what I can do about it!

The floor used to be covered with vinyl tiles, through which there was a visible dip in this one area, which felt soft to stand on. When I took up the old vinyl, I found there had been an attempt to fill in this dip with what is probably a self levelling compound of some sort, but this had just cracked and sunk. I tried putting more self levelling compound on top, but the same thing has just happened again.

I decided to remove all the self levelling compound and took a hammer to it, underneath was just damp wood and I literally dug this hole in it with my hands. As you can see, it's gone all the way down to the blue sheeting which I think is the DPM. However, it's not one whole piece of sheeting, there is an overlap and several small holes, which doesn't seem right for a DPM.

Most of the kitchen floor feels fine and solid, apart from to the right of this hole, where the floor meets the wall, it seems to give ever so slightly when I stand on it, and the floor seems to be not quite meeting the bottom of the wall (this sounds more worrying than it looks...).

I've been told there was a leak here once, could this be the reason why it is damp?

I'm on a super tight budget, so any ideas for something I can do myself to fix this would be ideal!

Many many thanks for any ideas,

Katie

 

[noseall]

water alone will have little detrimental effect on decent concrete.

frost, yes, water, no.

that floor looks like it is made up of dog turd.

sulphate based hard core can effect concrete floors, but usually older floors that are without a dpm.

i think it may be a case of poor hard core, insufficient slab and a very weak screed.

patch it if you like, but a builder worth his salt, would dig out to the required depth and lay a decent; base/insulation/sub slab/ screed.

 

[JohnD]

does the crumbly stuff seem to be wet chipboard?

what seems to be under the blue DPM? Concrete? Wood? Earth?

 

[mattysupra]

Budget or not, im afraid the dog turd ( as noseall called it ) needs to be dug up. You can repair the area but you still will have a damaged dpm and and a weak subfloor that will fail else where in the near future. To save a few quid you can do it yourself but make sure some one on here guides you through the operation ( myself, johnd, noseall, bigall etc) There are a few people on here that DONT know what there talking about so dont fly into the job with out allowing time for some of the regular names to correct any wrong info you might be given.

 

[mattysupra]

now i have looked again the subfloor does look like chipboard as john has said.

 

[katie86]

Thanks guys,

The brown stuff was definately chipboard once!

Underneath the blue stuff is really soft. Could be earth? Or more damp mashed up chipboard?

So that sounds like I really need to get someone in... would it be a quick fix for a builder or is it a massive job? Does it need to be a specific kind of builder or just any old general builder?

And definately nothing I can just fill the hole in with...?

Thanks so much for replies!

Katie

 

[big-all]

yep looks like chipboard to me with i assume cement introduced as a "filler "for some previously knocked out dammaged area or indeed as a leveling compound

i personaly woud remove the 2 obviously dammaged boards and have a look tell us what you see [more pictures ]

 

[katie86]

Those squares are actually marks from the vinyl tiles that used to be there, as far as I can remember it's just one big piece of chipboard but i'll check when I get back tonight and let you know!

Should I take up anything damp and crumbly then and take more photos?

Katie

 

[noseall]

realistically katie, you need to get a builder in to do the job properly.

it may be worth removing the chipboard and the blue membrane to let us nosey gits have a look at whats below, first.

 

[mattysupra]

how big is the area?

 

[JohnD]

No reason why Katie shouldn't take a pick and shovel to it. She may be a big strong girl.

Couple of tonnes of readimix barrowed in, DPM and some insulating slabs, and Bob's your uncle.

 

[joe-90]

Katie. To fix it properly will cost getting on for a couple of grand. You'd have to remove the old chipboard, dig down and remove two tons of rubble.Then (as john says) insulation plus readymix plus screed plus new covering.

Personally, if you are not going to live there for ever I'd pull up the chipboard and simply replace it with 18mm WBP ply and cover with something like cushion-floor or tiles. Cost? About £100 (+ the covering)

It looks like either you or someone before you had a leaky washing machine so I'd check that if I were you.

 

[JohnD]

I still want to see what's under that membrane.

 

[joe-90]

Who cares, John? It is stable apart from where it's turned to weeatbix.

 

[JohnD]

...Underneath the blue stuff is really soft. Could be earth...?

might be mud.