Wet rot wooden lintel in damp cellar

[Ivor Windybottom]

If you want dry storage in a victorian cellar you're going to be disappointed. It really isn't a room.

My dad used to keep the fridge in the cellar. If was flaking paint and crusty brown all over after not many years. All his tools were brown too.

 

[nero44]

If it's just holding up the front path then it hardly matters. But it you want to be sure you could pull up the front path and rebuild it from above.

That is already pencilled in as 2027 project. We are still considering a back extension, so there is a chance the front garden will be messed up and used to store building material. I'd redo the front garden only afterwards. Maybe that would be the time then to do any improvements of the supporting structure below. But it sounds like it would still hold up for a few more years for now.

My dad used to keep the fridge in the cellar. If was flaking paint and crusty brown all over after not many years. All his tools were brown too.

I hear you. All my tools and the good stuff is stored elsewhere. What I do plan to do there is just some plastic cabinets with closed boxes/containers with infrequently used items (some leftover building materials, infrequently used gardening tools etc).

 

[ree]

OP,
I made mistakes ref pics in post #11 but given I'm looking at badly focused and lighted pics in post #11 - my impression is that I can clearly see dry rot. Better pics would help.
There's also active rot showing in other places - as my earlier post mentioned.

You dont just leave dry rot, or any other kind of rot, as was suggested above.
Giving dry rot a scrape & a spray of fungicide wont work - the rotting wood will need removing.
Be aware that dry rot moves behind render & in brickwork.

Bay Skirting boards are internal.
Are the bay gutter & the hopper & RWP free and open?
Where does the combined RWP drain to - a pic of where it enters ground level (a gully?) would help?
Does it discharge at the kerb or does it just disappear - is there a manhole nearby?

Whatever you do - dont start digging up the front path.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Whatever you do - dont start digging up the front path.

Why not? Would it open a portal to another dimension?

 

[Nige F]

OP,
I made mistakes ref pics

Blimey that's a first for the mighty ree. All hail his fount of knowledge

 

[Munroast]

OP,
I made mistakes ref pics in post #11 but given I'm looking at badly focused and lighted pics in post #11 - my impression is that I can clearly see dry rot. Better pics would help.
There's also active rot showing in other places - as my earlier post mentioned.

You dont just leave dry rot, or any other kind of rot, as was suggested above.
Giving dry rot a scrape & a spray of fungicide wont work - the rotting wood will need removing.
Be aware that dry rot moves behind render & in brickwork.

Bay Skirting boards are internal.
Are the bay gutter & the hopper & RWP free and open?
Where does the combined RWP drain to - a pic of where it enters ground level (a gully?) would help?
Does it discharge at the kerb or does it just disappear - is there a manhole nearby?

Whatever you do - dont start digging up the front path.

we had a victorian property riddled with dry rot, and it didn't look like anything in the OP pictures, to me it just looks like wet rot (and we had plenty of that too)
Look at image 1196, the centre of the wood away from the damp looks perfect, it that was dry rot it would be all cracked in those typical cube shapes - and if there was dry rot where are all the fruiting bodies.

Curiously the lintel to our coal cellar was very similar to the one in the OP house, it was just wet rot as it was too damp in that area.

If you want dry storage in a victorian cellar you're going to be disappointed. It really isn't a room.

My dad used to keep the fridge in the cellar. If was flaking paint and crusty brown all over after not many years. All his tools were brown too.

not entirely true - it can be done, we fully tanked the walls and floor and created good ventilation - it was an entirely usable space and believe it still is

 

[catlad]

pressed a screwdriver in with virtually no resistance.... all mushy..

Probably went mushy after someone paved over the grid.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

not entirely true - it can be done, we fully tanked the walls and floor and created good ventilation - it was an entirely usable space and believe it still is

If you want a dry basement you build a room within the existing room, with drainage around and under it.

"Tanking" usually means painting waterproof glop on the walls. This is intended for showers, to keep water from the room out of the wall. It's not capable of keeping water inside the wall, it will just crack and blow off, leaving you with a damp and now peeling room.

You may get some good results initially, but it's unlikely to last.

Proper cellar paint is very sticky but porous - it's designed to glue the surface together but allow the water to get out of the wall into the room. Then you ventilate it.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I painted a manky damp old single-skin garage with this stuff...

Durbocem

Ideal for painting damp walls and cellars. For interior and exterior use. Overcoat with Paracem Decco for a durable attractive finish in any colour,

holmanpaints.co.uk

It's very good stuff. Solvent based, so lots of extraction/ventilation needed. It contains cement, so it sets like any other paint but then the cement sets again once it finds moisture from the wall or room.

This will give you a clean but still damp room, which is a huge improvement for little effort.

 

[nero44]

I painted a manky damp old single-skin garage with this stuff...

Durbocem

Ideal for painting damp walls and cellars. For interior and exterior use. Overcoat with Paracem Decco for a durable attractive finish in any colour,

holmanpaints.co.uk

It's very good stuff. Solvent based, so lots of extraction/ventilation needed. It contains cement, so it sets like any other paint but then the cement sets again once it finds moisture from the wall or room.

This will give you a clean but still damp room, which is a huge improvement for little effort.

Thanks. I now pained two walls down there with lime wash. I was under the impression this was the right thing todo in order to allow moisture to exit the walls. Else I would be trapping the moisture inside the wall only for it to rise up into the house?

Having said that, the coverage of lime plaster in such super damp environments is not great. A lot of the dirt and discoloration comes through the lime wash. It's still better than before.

Regarding the wooden lintel area, I am going to apply some fungicide around the areas just to see if I can kill of as much as possible to prevent further spread if any. For the wooden linel, I might carve out a 5cm please, and refill with met-set metolux (cement resin). Let it dry and then do another few cm or so. Or maybe I just leave everything untouched for now.. there is still so much other cleanup to be done down there.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I wouldn't touch that without having some beams and acro props around it. Be very careful, there are many tons of stone above it.

Lime wash was the best thing about a century ago! It's better than nothing but will soon dissolve away. But if it's already been gobbed up with the stuff you probably won't be able to get anything else to stick anyway.