Mouldy 'Marley' floor tiles under carpet

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Hi I'm in the process of re-doing a downstairs bedroom in our 1960s chalet.

The room has always smelt a bit (blamed it on the previous elderly occupiers). I took the carpet up and noticed a thin covering on mould on the 'Marley' style floor tiles underneath.

Should I remove the floor tiles before a new carpet/underlay is installed or should the floor be treated in any way?

Any advice much appreciated thank you.

Rich
 
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I would expect that the floor has no damp proofing. new build concrete floors have a plastic sheet "dpm" underneath.

what to do depends on how bothered u are and how stable the floor is (is it still moving/sinking or pretty well compacted and not going anywhere).

you could dig up and put a new floor in (biggish job), if the sub floor is fairly stable then a pour on dpm would be good. the simplest would be to just put a dpm sheet down before relaying carpet.

the only slight hesitation with the latter is that with a dpm down the moisture will try to go elsewhere ie up the walls and potentially cause problems their if the house has not been damp proofed. i don't think is a significant risk given it's been carpet/underlay before which will have trapped the moisture to a certain extent.

i'd probably give just the dpm ago to start with and see how it goes. obviously the other options are better solutions but more time and money.
 
we are guessing you have a concrete floor and it is more than 20-30 years old. Is that right?

was the carpet a rubber-backed one that prevents moisture from drying out, so keeping the undertiles damp?
 
Yes - you are right in your assumption of a concrete floor.

The concrete floor seems in reasonable condition although a few of the marley tiles have cracked/come away - but not to any great extent.

The mould isn't rife but the room always did niff a bit.

Thanks for suggestions...there was paper under the rubber backed carpet..would underlay and a wool carpet be better.

I don't mind taking the tiles up but no sure if there might be some form of bitumen residue

Thanks
 
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would underlay and a wool carpet be better.

No. u need to stop the damp at the floor level before putting down any soft furnishings ie laminate, underlay, carpet etc. otherwise the niff will be back.

I don't mind taking the tiles up but no sure if there might be some form of bitumen residue

bitumen is a good damp proofing material. as long as it's not cracked then i'm now not sure what would be causing the niff.

i feel options are repair the odd tile with mortar and lay a dpm over the top before soft furnishings or take up tiles put down liquid dpm and then soft furnish.
 

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