Hi, Just bought my first house, got the keys yesterday. One of the first things I did (after clearing out two car loads of junk left by previous owners) was to rip up the laminate flooring on the lounge. After I did that I promptly put my foot through the chipboard floor! Found my first 'supprise', the lounge floor is totally rotten! I have now pulled up a good chunk of the flooring, the joists seem OK.
I think this rot has been caused by two factors, one was a gully which was totally blocked, this gully has now been un-blocked so that problem should now be solved. The second problem is there is insufficient ventilation to this floor area. There are only 4 air bricks in the front wall (4.5m wide) and none in any of the other 3 walls of this area. The house is a mid-terrace and the kitchen which spans the full width of the house at the rear has a solid floor so I cannot easily add air bricks to any of the other walls.
Two options I have considered is to lay a concrete floor or to dig up the kitchen floor in order to lay some ventilation ducts linking to air bricks in the rear wall of the house. Both these options will be very time-consuming, messy and expensive.
The lounge also has a fireplace and chimney on the back wall opposite the airbricks. I was considering ripping out the fireplace and bricking up the hole anyway so was wondering if it would be possible to vent the now redundant flue into the floor void and would this provide sufficient ventilation to the floor void?
Many thanks, lee.
I think this rot has been caused by two factors, one was a gully which was totally blocked, this gully has now been un-blocked so that problem should now be solved. The second problem is there is insufficient ventilation to this floor area. There are only 4 air bricks in the front wall (4.5m wide) and none in any of the other 3 walls of this area. The house is a mid-terrace and the kitchen which spans the full width of the house at the rear has a solid floor so I cannot easily add air bricks to any of the other walls.
Two options I have considered is to lay a concrete floor or to dig up the kitchen floor in order to lay some ventilation ducts linking to air bricks in the rear wall of the house. Both these options will be very time-consuming, messy and expensive.
The lounge also has a fireplace and chimney on the back wall opposite the airbricks. I was considering ripping out the fireplace and bricking up the hole anyway so was wondering if it would be possible to vent the now redundant flue into the floor void and would this provide sufficient ventilation to the floor void?
Many thanks, lee.
