concrete floor upstairs?

[rotterman]

Hi, first time on this forum, and I wondered if anyone can offer me any advice/ information.
Seems I have abit of an unusual situation: here goes!
I live in a 1850s ish farm cottage built from limestone and brick. It has had a two storey extension in the past (bout 1980s). I recently noticed that the newer part of the house has floorboards upstairs under the carpets, whereas the older part of the house appears to have a 2inch layer of concrete atop a wooden lath like structure as flooring. I now understand why our central heating pipes arent hidden under the upstairs floor!
Ive tried searching on the net, but im struggling to find anyone that has a similar setup? anyone else come across this at all?
It also appears that whoever fitted the central heating system, cut a channel all the way through the concrete across the hallway to hide a pipe, then replaced the gap with a piece of wood over the top of the pipe. will this have affected the integrity of the floor?

And finally, I was hoping in the future to fit a bathroom upstairs, and have the house rewired (which i imagine the concrete floor would make extremely difficult), so would it be possible/feasible to rip the concrete floor out and replace with timber floorboards?
sorry for the long first post and thanks for sharing any help/experiences

 

[ladylola]

What you have is a lime ash floor. I've seen this in many old properties like your own and can be laid on lethes or even reeds or straw, cheap but pretty effective. It's possible , and I've seen it done, to take it up smash it up and by remixing in some fresh lime to relay it.
This relaying was done in a listed building where we cut channels to put in conduit for cables and then relaid the floor.
Personally I'd either keep the floor as an original feature or if you do replace the floor with boards go for something in keeping with the age of the property such as random width boards probably in oak or elm and fixed with cut nails.
If you fit a bathroom and are worried about the weight of the bath on the floor then mount the bath on a sheet of 18mm ply or thicker.
Here's a website that may help-
http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/lime_ash_floors.htm

 

[rotterman]

Thanks for your reply. I had come across lime ash floors when I was looking on the net, but I'd never really considered it could be that because the material we had looked so similar to concrete.
Now I think about it, it does seem fairly obvious, as we live about 1/2 mile away from an old limestone quarry, and the old portion of the house used lime mortar.
With it likely to be an original feature of the house (and being quite unusual) I think I will probably keep it. I know of an engineer that specialises in historic rural buildings, so I will get in touch with him.
Thanks very much