Hi all.
I have recently purchased a property with beautiful solid oak flooring in the living room. Unfortunately, due to inadequate drainage and the nature of the original property (solid walls), we are suffering from minor rising damp, which has affected an area very close to the oak floor.
Effectively, I think the place had partial ground floor flooding, in combination with the 2nd owner back getting repoed and leaving all the doors and windows open when he flitted. The ew owners (also repo'ed!) fitted insulation underlay and carpet directly over the top of the wood block flooring, which has made the situation worse! It could be down to simple rising damp though. The result was the block wood flooring in the hallway to the living room has blown slightly, with softening of the underlying cement and the oak flooring has blown very slightly making it difficult to close the living room door connecting it to the hallway.
Now, it appears as if the oak flooring is of very high quality and looks over 1/2" thick, but has been fitted under the oak skirting boards, making it very very difficult to lift.
We are planning to sort out the drainage issues this summer, hopefully meaning the damp problem we have will go away somewhat. alas, that still leaves us with an area of hall flooring with eroding cement, and the raised oak flooring.
How would you all look at resolving this? I am thinking seriously about tiling or extending the wood flooring into the hallway, but how can I ensure we have no repeat of the damp and damaging the expensive flooring?
Secondly, how do I go about lifitng the oak to see what its like underneath the floor? Thanks in advance.
I have recently purchased a property with beautiful solid oak flooring in the living room. Unfortunately, due to inadequate drainage and the nature of the original property (solid walls), we are suffering from minor rising damp, which has affected an area very close to the oak floor.
Effectively, I think the place had partial ground floor flooding, in combination with the 2nd owner back getting repoed and leaving all the doors and windows open when he flitted. The ew owners (also repo'ed!) fitted insulation underlay and carpet directly over the top of the wood block flooring, which has made the situation worse! It could be down to simple rising damp though. The result was the block wood flooring in the hallway to the living room has blown slightly, with softening of the underlying cement and the oak flooring has blown very slightly making it difficult to close the living room door connecting it to the hallway.
Now, it appears as if the oak flooring is of very high quality and looks over 1/2" thick, but has been fitted under the oak skirting boards, making it very very difficult to lift.
We are planning to sort out the drainage issues this summer, hopefully meaning the damp problem we have will go away somewhat. alas, that still leaves us with an area of hall flooring with eroding cement, and the raised oak flooring.
How would you all look at resolving this? I am thinking seriously about tiling or extending the wood flooring into the hallway, but how can I ensure we have no repeat of the damp and damaging the expensive flooring?
Secondly, how do I go about lifitng the oak to see what its like underneath the floor? Thanks in advance.
