Water Leak - Wet Joist

Meatballs

Noticed a big puddle of water under the flooring when I had some planks up to lay some cable in another area of the house.

One of the joints connecting copper pipe and plastic piping has been spraying water up onto my joist and floorboards under the kitchen.

I'm just going to replace the floorboards with some pine where they have become wet as thats a pretty simple job.

I'm more worried about the joists which have got quite a lot of moisture in them and have some white mould growth. Also seems to be some evidence of woodworm although I dont know how recent.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/campbellab/sets/72157629510963529/

The dark dampness of the wood probably extends about a metre either side of where the spray occurred.

The airflow under my flooring is quite good (I can feel the airflow on face when I pull up a board), so I'm hoping it will dry out reasonably quickly, but will probably throw a dehumidifier down there for a while to help, when I can get my hands on one.

Then a liberal coating of
http://www.wickes.co.uk/invt/170696 to be safe?

Am I going about it the right way? Any advice?

phill99

Just let the timber dry out naturally. You'be surprised how resiliant timber is. But I would tend to steer away from treating with anything. Unless its 100% dry, you will only trap moisture in the timber and it will start decaying from the inside.

Meatballs

Cool, thanks for the advice.

27col

Let it dry naturally. I would be more concerned about what looks like woodworm holes in the joist.

bobthedambuilder

As far as the woodworm holes go, that's not a serious infestation, as long as you don't let it get any worse (I have much more extensive holes than this on my floors and once treated, there has been no problem since). You can sometimes tell if the infestation is still active by the presence of yellowy-coloured dust or tiny pellets below the holes.

Allow the joists to dry out, and once dry, paint on a proprietary woodworm treatment on the affected area and round it. If you still see signs of activity after this, time to call in the specialists who will treat the timber with a pressure spray which penetrates right into the wood.

Chris_Michael

the speed of drying will depend on the level of moisture in the air around the timber, the lower this is, the faster the timber will dry. hence clothes on a washing line dry faster on a dry day than they do on a damp day. It is just a case of organic materials wanting to be in equilibrium with their surroundings.

Just as clothes dry faster on a windy day so will your timber if you blow air over them with a fan. This is because you need air flow to encourage the sticky water molecules to come out.

So a dehumidifier would help the drying process but they will dry eventually as long as the air around them is resonably dry. Fans will help to speed up the process as well.

Hope this helps.

Chris