Sealing floorboards to eliminate smells

[mckean2]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone can help. I've recently bought a top floor flat in an old tenement building. Since moving in, i have realised the woman below is pretty much a chain smoker and really bad smells are coming through the floor (and every gap imaginable!). As the property was built around 1905, it has traditional floor boards with some quite large gaps (up to 1cm) between boards, uneven floor boards, slopping floors, gaps below skirting etc.

I'm looking for some advice and options for how to seal the floor boards to eliminate the smells. I'm looking to put a range of flooring over the subfloor, tiles, carpet and possibly a new wooden floor. For each of these i've thought about putting in membrane (e.g. damp proof membrane) and then sealing that against the skirting, then either replacing the underlay/carpet or putting on plywood or cement boarding for wood floors/tiles. But i'm not sure by attaching plywood on top and thus having to screw/nail through the membrane, it will stop the purpose of the membrane to seal by creating holes. I'm now thinking it might be better to fill the gaps between the floor board (by some method??) and then put a screed over the floor somehow?

Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions would be great!!

 

[ajrobb]

It doesn't sound like you have a good seal between dwellings. I'd be concerned about fire safety. Maybe some badly installed downlights have left huge holes in her ceilings. It is probably more important to seal any gaps in her ceilings. Anyway, good luck, I hope you get it sorted out.