Filling in floor where old fireplace stood

[angechica]

We have removed the chimney breast from our dining room. It was not structural as the dining room is single storey. Our house is a miners terrace c.100 years old. It can be seen from the bare wall that the space previously housed the old range with a small diagonal flue to the main chimney stack. The chimney breast must have been built later to house the back boiler which we have just had ripped out.

The floor where the fireplace/ range was will need to be filled in with concrete prior to laying new flooring. It's just ash and rubble. We presume there will be rising damp although haven't measured for it. Do we just follow Sticky's instructions as above for installing DPM or is there anything else we need to do? Forgive my ignorance but I don't know what kind of foundations houses like this have. We're trying to do this project ourselves and can't really afford structural engineers etc. Thanks for any advice.

 

[Symptoms]

ange - you don't say what the rest of the floor in this room is made of: timber or concrete? As to any DPM ... is the dwelling brick-built or stone? Brick-built and maybe (just maybe) there'll be a slate DPC (damp proof course as opposed to a membrane) ... many miners cottages were 'thrown-up' by the coal owning Barons (bast**ds) on the cheap so may have poor/shallow foundation and no DPC; stone cottages will have no original DPC and rubble footings. Have a poke around outside to check for a low-level slate course.

Timber floor - dig out the old ash & rubble, extend joists (use treated timber) over the void, board over.

Concrete floor ... is this original/does it extend throughout the ground floor? Original = no DPM so does the floor have a high moisture reading? Lots of considerations/solutions here so post reply.

 

[angechica]

thanks Symptoms. It is a brick built house. Can't see any sign of a slate DPC. The walls adjoining the old fireplace are an internal wall and a party wall. i think the external walls have possibly had DPC. We've certainly never had any problems with damp.

The floor is timber except to the right of the old fireplace is a concrete patch - where the old hot tank cupboard stood, which we have also removed. Bearing in mind the chimney was stopped up so no water's been coming down it for many years. I think we can get away with just extending the timber floor - it was a mate recommended we should lay a damp course.