Dry rot / wet rot in wooden ceiling joists

edchalk

We’ve recently uncovered rotten wooden ceiling beams above our kitchen after investigating a bowed ceiling. Our kitchen sits below the bathroom of the flat above, and we have learnt from neighbors that the previous occupier had complained of leaks from above 5 years ago. The wooden joists are not damp but they’re crumbling to touch at the bottom & we’ve also noticed small holes in one of the joists suggesting woodworm. 

We've had 2 timber & damp surveyors come round & they both offered slightly different diagnosis. The first said it was clearly damp rot and the other said it was very definately dry rot due to the white 'snowflake' style mold visible on the boards above the joists. Both recommended treating the timbers with some sort of spray/injection and then supporting the damaged joists with fresh timber running alongside, but their varying diagnosis has thrown us

. Does anybody have an opinion as to whether this looks like wet or dry rot because presumably the treatments will vary accordingly. Any help would be very much appreciated - I worry that we're at the mercy of the opinions of self-professed experts who cant seem to agree on what the issue is !

Thanks in advance

Doozergirl

You've got both.  The white is very clearly dry rot. It has a root system that feeds on the leak.   The very clearly rotting joist looks like wet rot.  

And the boards above still look wet to me.  That looks like a long slow leak to me that still hasn't stopped.  

The treatment isn't much different.  Remove affected areas and replace.   Not going to be fun if that is someone else's house.  Looks like an insurance claim on your part.  

edchalk

Doozergirl said:

You've got both.  The white is very clearly dry rot. It has a root system that feeds on the leak.   The very clearly rotting joist looks like wet rot.  

And the boards above still look wet to me.  That looks like a long slow leak to me that still hasn't stopped.  

The treatment isn't much different.  Remove affected areas and replace.   Not going to be fun if that is someone else's house.  Looks like an insurance claim on your part.  

Ah ok thanks - we own a share of the freehold alongside the other flats in the block and were advised by our freehold management company that claiming via the insurance would result in a quadrupling of our premiums. They told us to come to an arangement with the flat upstairs to pay for it ourselves if possible ?

FreeBear

This is one place where a moisture meter has a use - Check the floorboards to see what sort of reading you get. I t should be around 12-18%. Any higher, then I'd say there is still a leak that needs fixing. Once the source of the leak has been fixed, all wet, damaged, and rotted timber needs to be cut out and replaced. This may well mean ripping out the bathroom above to get to the floorboards as well as removing even more of your ceiling.

Doozergirl

I suspect your quadrupled premiums might be cheaper than the fallout from this.  At least the premiums are shared...

how big is the room? 

edchalk

It's a small kitchen : 3.1 x 2.6 meters. The premiums are shared but our freehold managing agent has advised that if we claimed on the insurance and the shared premiums went up, myself and my partner could be liable for action form the other freeholders ( the owners of the 2 flats below ours) who had nothing to do with this issue

Homer_home

Do you intend to pull all your lath and plaster ceiling down?

If you do pull it all down you will be able to see the extent of the damage and what will need to be done to repair it , if the damage is localised you will be able to repair it from below without having to rip out the upstairs bathroom 

However before all this the leak which still appears to be there MUST be fixed first 

edchalk

Hi everybody - thanks for all of your advice so far. We’ve had 3 timber specialists round so far with 2 more scheduled for Monday & Tuesday next week. The whole ceiling is coming down next weekend to give us a better look at the extent of the rot but the consensus so far is that the damage might be localised to the area under our upstairs neighbours bath waste pipe.

Damp readings from the underside of his floorboards and the top of the joists are indicating that the wood is now dry, although the joists have clearly been damaged by wet rot and some sort of woodworm, but again this is historic.

2 of the damp surveyors claim the damage is purely wet rot and the white snowflakey mould is surface level but not evidence of dry rot. The other guy swears blind that the whole issue is definitely dry rot “from 30 years experience”. Hopefully the other 2 opinions will help us to reach a consensus as we don’t want to pay for the wrong treatment. 

edchalk

Unfortunately the job looks like it’s going to cost in the region of £2-4K to put right. This would involve treating the existing timbers to prevent further woodworm / termites & mould, then supporting each of the damaged joists with parallel beams sistered onto the damaged ones to hold the ceiling up.

Weve been advised that a block insurance claim is a non starter because it will likely result in a 4-fold increase in premiums as well as making future water ingress claims much more expensive (due to a much higher excess).

The guy upstairs who we feel is responsible for the damage doesn’t have funds to hand, so our plan was to choose the most reasonable quote, pay for it ourselves, and then try to claim it back over time over some sort of formal signed agreement, or the small claims court if that doesn’t work.

we don’t really feel as if we have any other option given that our kitchen is currently a no-go zone and we just want it sorted out ASAP. Does anybody have any experience of this or similar ?

daveyjp

How can anyone know what a new premium will be based on a claim which hasn't been made yet?  If the renewal quote is too high there are other companies and brokers out there.

I'd be suspicious about why an insurance claim is being discouraged.

Does the freeholder have a cosy deal with a particular insurance company?  Many do which is why they may be reluctant to submit a claim.

Homer_home

Where did you get that quote from of 2-4k or did you just pull it out of thin air?

The reason I ask is if the ceiling isn't down yet there's no way you can have an accurate quote of what it's going to cost as you have no idea how many beams are affected