Jeremy Kidwell

John C Daley wrote:There is possibly a good reason somebody changed the floor.
I had a friend in a similar house, illness all the time in the family.
I detected dampness everywhere, bad spouting, ground water and suggested he look at fixing the spouting for a tart.
That helped and then we concreted one room to see the effect. IUt was stunning, mould, dampness illness all stopped so the whole house was done.

You may reintroduce those same issues if you rip up the floor.

Actually, you also raise a really good question here: re rain water removal which I hadn't thought about.

Here's a photo of the back wall - the last window before the fence is the kitchen window, so you can see how the ground level slopes upwards along the rear exterior wall:

I believe the discolouration on the bricks is from ivy that was growing up the wall which has since been removed (a few years ago). I gather it was growing quite vigorously as I've found a few roots that made it all the way through the wall into the pantry shown in the photo above. But as you can see there isn't any guttering or much overhand. This might be due to the fact that the house is protected by hillside behind and roof is sloped towards the front of the house. Will need to check and see.

Thanks for this suggestion John. I'd wondered about this myself, but the current scenario is pretty bad - the back wall is quite damp and was producing mold (wet to touch at any given time) and I can't imagine the hydrostatic pressure from the current setup is helping that. My thinking is that if I open up the floor, it will at least allow for some additional evaporation which will be taken out by the active fan ventilation and by extension take some pressure off the back wall. I totally agree there will be more moisture in the air in the kitchen, but I think I've addressed this with the introduction of more active ventilation. Are there other possible problems that I'm not thinking of?

Worth noting that I am planning to fix a membrane to the back wall, with 1" battens, woodwool boards and lime plaster skim as well to keep moisture away from the new cabinets I'm installing.

Just for fun - photos here:

I'm renovating an 1880s Victorian house - it's solid brick masonry walls with (in most cases original) lime plaster on the interior, and in most places suspended timber floors over earth. It's a lovely breathable structure with some unwise modifications that have been added over time and have caused some problems, particularly for the mitigation of water vapour. I'm adding an air source heat pump with oversized radiators, to be powered eventually by solar PV to keep the house warm, and adding some individual mechanical ventilation with heat recovery devices to improve air circulation. There are air bricks in place which seem to be providing excellent ventilation to the subfloor where floors are suspended timber (no signs of rot after 100+ years).

My current project is to address some serious damp/mold problems in the back of the kitchen, which rotted out the bottom/back of the previous cabinets (all now removed / recycled). The brick wall is partially buried underground, but also for some reason a former occupant installed a plastic membrane and concrete slab, presumably as part of a renovation on the cheap. The rest of the bottom floor is quarry tiles on bare earth. I'd like to remove the slab and membrane and reinstate the earth floor that was previously in place with quarry tiles on top.

Here's my key question: what sort of soil should I install for the subfloor? I've been working my way through Crimmel and Thomson's Earthen Floors book to try and get a sense of things, and gather this should be a good mix of (mostly = 50-70%) sand, clay and soil (at 20% or less) and maybe fibres as well. I could easily excavate the soil necessary for this from outside the house and mix with sand, but wonder if there would be a need to address the biology in the soil? Also, for folks who have done this kind of flooring, what sorts of top layer have worked? I could do a thin lime screed on the new section, but the rest of the house is bare compacted earth, so am not sure if this is necessary.

There's also some long term potential here for removing soil which is against the house and replacing it with gravel and a french drain, but that's a way off for now.

Any and all comments welcome!