Possible woodworm

aprilkm

Hi everyone, we just purchased a house that had wet rot under the floorboards in one room that affected the joists. We have replaced the affected joists and floorboards  but a few of the old boards and joists are a bit crumbly and someone noted that this is active woodworm. I cannot see any holes on the wood so I am wondering if this is true and how we should proceed. All the companies that do timber surveys are also offering treatments and I did not have a good experience with two that came to see and give a quote. They are trying to sell the treatment... could the crumbly wood be due to the wet rot? And now that it is changed everything is fine? If it is woodworm, how long until things get really bad and we need to replace everything again? Any experiences would help a lot! Thanks 

Hasbeen

aprilkm said:

Hi everyone, we just purchased a house that had wet rot under the floorboards in one room that affected the joists. We have replaced the affected joists and floorboards  but a few of the old boards and joists are a bit crumbly and someone noted that this is active woodworm. I cannot see any holes on the wood so I am wondering if this is true and how we should proceed. All the companies that do timber surveys are also offering treatments and I did not have a good experience with two that came to see and give a quote. They are trying to sell the treatment... could the crumbly wood be due to the wet rot? And now that it is changed everything is fine? If it is woodworm, how long until things get really bad and we need to replace everything again? Any experiences would help a lot! Thanks 

Sounds like dry rot if crumbly. Wood worm would have lots of holes, tunnel tracks. Google dry rot/wood rot etc.

Davesnave

If there are no holes it's not active woodworm and if the underfloor area is now dry any woodworm would not be active long as the prefer damp wood. Even woodworm attacks on new wood tend to die out naturally as the wood seasons and hardens.

But what did you change to get rid of the damp?

aprilkm

Thank you for your response. That was my opinion as well, especially since I thought that woodworm infestation would have a lot of holes on the wood, and we have none...

There were some big black water containers which were connected to the gutters to store rain water for the garden, that when they were overflowing the water was sipping on the bottom of the external wall under the joists. The damp proof membrane was stopping the water from going up the wall but the bottom of the wall is still wet. We removed these water containers and are hoping to have the wall dry soon... then we should cover up and hope for the best. We also added an airbrick and that should help.

Davesnave

Sounds like you are on the right track with remedial action. It's probably just residual wet rot which make wood crumble.

With external walls, the most important thing is to ensure the ground level is at least two brick courses below the DPC (150mm) which should eliminate problems with splashing. Not much chance of anything drying today!

aprilkm

Thanks for the comments! There is a gap between the ground and the surface that is covered with pebbles. I need to measure if there is enough space between the ground and the membrane. I am not sure the wall will be dry with all this rain and I really don’t want to wait for months until the summer 😂 would the new airbrick make enough difference so that any residual moisture is gone even if we cover the floorboards with the new floor?