Dry rot in my lounge! Help!

celine

About 2 months ago we noticed some horrible mushrooms coming out of our skirting boards in the lounge in the corner of the room. To cut a long story short, it has been identified since as dry rot, something we knew nothing about, and horrified at the threat it repreesents to our home and the potential cost involved in putting it right. We have had a couple of quotes for around £1700 to treat an area of 1.5 by 1.5m, knowing that it is likely to go up depending what they find after getting rid of the floor boards and plaster off the walls.
I have been told that if we could air out the area, this would be enough to get rid of the horrible thing. If this is true, how long should we leave our walls plaster free and walk on concrete for to guarantee it gets killed? If the dry rot has penetrated inside the brick wall, would the exposure to air get to that too? Then someone else told me that if we air the area out, we are likely to send the dry rot running in another direction, as it tries to preserve itself and therefore moving the problem elsewhere. Is this true? (at the moment we have got rid of the skirting boards and sprayed the base of the wall with dry rot treatment from B&Q)
We have only been in the house for 18 months and we intend to get a surveyor in to establish the source, and the age of the infection. If we find that it is more that 18 months old, do we have legal grounds against the previous owners? If they had had it before would they have had a legal obligation to let us know? (we didn't go for a full survey, as we were advised, maybe wrongl in hindsight, that they are a waste of money)
We have been thinking about how it happened in the first place. We did bring in a piece of timber from a barn when we bought the house. Could we at the same time have imported this problem? Ihave also wondered whether over watering a plant in the corner of the lounge (where the problem is now) and the water overflowing underneath the skirting boards could have been the trigger? Does the dry rot need a constant source of moisture to keep going, or does it just need a trigger?
And finally, does anyone think that we stand a good chance treating this ourselves, hence saving a hell of a lot of money we simply don't have? I am so worried about it! Many thanks!!

phill99

Not sure about the spread of Dry Rot, but a couple of points.

In legal terms there is the phrase 'Caveat Emptor' which translates to 'buyer beware'. Therefore the onus is on the purchaser to investigate the house properly, not for the vendors to advise you of defects. Therefore even if the DR had been there for more than 18 months, it would still be down to you, not the purchaser to find out about it. Not an expert, but I can't help thinking that it hasn't been there for 18 months - I'm surer it would have spread further!

Also, there are certain things that DIYers should tackle and some that they shouldn't. I think this one should stay with the Pro's. They have access to chemicals which are not sold to the public (some may need licences) and they offer guarantees / warrantees on their work because of this. You are not obliged to use there plasterers - you could get someone else to do that part of the job and maybe save some money that way.

Bungarm2001

Phill is right...get the pros in. It hurts me to say that 'cos we always tackle practically every job ourselves, but in this case, I would bite the bullet and get it dealt with professionally.

Dry rot as you have probably found out by now can not only eat your wood, but brick and plaster too which means that the pros will sterilise all the surrounding areas of masonry.

Dry rot is pretty serious, but can be cured. We've seen dry rot fruiting bodies nearly 5 feet across which represented years of growth, but it was subsequently treated and the property ended up being a real cracker.

Don't be too downhearted! All these things are sent to try us...! If it is a relatively small patch, believe it or not, a full survey could still have missed it!

celine

Thanks for the advice. What do you think about opening the area up ourselves, to stop it spreading further though? We need to find the money, and decide who to go with (we have had 2 quotes, and would like 2 more before we decide who to go with), and in the meantime the scary mushrooms will carry on growing. Also do you think the plant in the corner of the room could be the source of moisture it needed? (We don't seem to have found a leak elsewhere)The plant is large and the pot terracota and therefore porous. I found a mushroom on the base of the pot when I lifted it.

celine

Thanks for the advice. What do you think about opening the area up ourselves, to stop it spreading further though? We need to find the money, and decide who to go with (we have had 2 quotes, and would like 2 more before we decide who to go with), and in the meantime the scary mushrooms will carry on growing. Also do you think the plant in the corner of the room could be the source of moisture it needed? (We don't seem to have found a leak elsewhere)The plant is large and the pot terracota and therefore porous. I found a mushroom on the base of the pot when I lifted it.

liitleblackcat

Would it be covered by your buildings insurance? Worth checking the policy.

celine

We checked, and of course it's not covered. Our insurance company knows this kind of problems is likely to cost thousands, so they don't insure for that! Crafty!

fragola

Bungarm2001 wrote: »

Dry rot as you have probably found out by now can not only eat your wood, but brick and plaster too which means that the pros will sterilise all the surrounding areas of masonry.

Dry rot doesn't eat brick and plaster, it only eats wood (and cellulose) that has a moisture content over about 20%. It needs to draw nutrients from brick and plaster in order to survive (which is why it occurs in timber that's in contact with masonary), but it doesn't eat them.

It does travel through brick and plaster in search of more damp wood, but once its woody food source is removed, it cannot survive for long (although it can remain dormant for some time). Masonary sterilisation is not an effective way of tackling the beastie (despite what companies who carry out the service will tell you).

I think the best advice regarding dry rot is "know your enemy" - this will give you some idea of what to do if you want a crack at tackling it yourself, or if you decide to get the professionals in, you'll recognise if they're telling you a load of nonsense. BRE Digest 299 "Dry rot: it's recognition and control" gives a concise description of the fungus, how it functions and how it can be dealt with. It's available from the RICS bookshop http://www.ricsbooks.com/default.asp.

Basically though, the first things that you should be doing are finding out and eliminating the source of moisture, then rapidly drying out the building.

Secondary measures include finding the extent of the outbreak, removing rotten wood (along with any paper or card around the area, as it can eat this too) and replacing it with pretreated timber and improving ventilation to the area.

Hope this helps!

M.E.

I agree completely with fragola.

Dry rot needs a source of moisture. It is after all a fungus and mushroomry things always grow in damp places.
Where dry rot is different from other mushrooms, is that the "roots" can travel a long way from the moisture source to the wood. Also once dry rot has affected the wood, all the strength goes and that is why it is particularly serious, as the wood can just crumble and anything it was supporting will fall down.
You cannot "treat" dry rotted wood.
You have to cut out and replace the timber with treated timber PLUS remove the source of moisture PLUS make sure ventilation is adequate.
Have you floorboards on joists? If so you will have to make sure there is ventilation under the floor (normally airbricks on the outside wall). Make sure these are clear.
If you have a solid floor, then the skirting board may well have been affected by either the overwatering of the plant OR from outside (if it is an outside wall).. with probably earth/soil/pathway above the damp proof course.

Bungarm2001

Good advice...! As someone who has come up against this particular enemy, I can tell you it can be less frightening than it actually looks, even a five foot monster!!:eek:

What my post was meant to say is the threads from the main body penetrate brick, plaster, you name it and they can travel a very very long way away from the original 'mushroom' even next door (as in my case) looking for its next drink. Dry rot as you say doesn't technically 'eat' masonary as such, but can certainly weaken it in a severe attack.

In our case, the fruits were removed along with a heap of plaster, and the walls underneath sprayed with a heavy duty fungicide, now whether we were ripped off by the company who did this for us, I'll never really know, but I was very satisfied with everything they did (they explained every step of the process) and (equally as importantly in my book..) my neighbours AND my building insurers were very happy too. NEVER underestimate the reaction of an insurer when you put the words 'dry' and 'rot' in the same sentence!! :eek:

Know your enemy by all means, but also get as much advice as possible from the pros..you can never have too much in my experience! ...good luck with it! Let us know how you get on

celine

Thank you so much everyone for your time and care!! We have had a 4th guy come round tonight, and he is the one who made most sense, and didn't seem out there to try and rip us off (we hope). He advised us to air the area, remove floor boards, joists (our floor boards are staright on concrete, with imbeded wooden joists in the concrete!!), and to get rid of the plaster from the walls ourselves, so as to cut costs. He said he will quote us on just treating the area, and will leave us with some product so that whoever will redo our plastering will be able to mix a bit with it before application. He seems to have identified the source as being the plant. The mositure from the base of the pot, together with an instance of overlowing a few months back, all that coupled with a cardboard box just by behind the plant (we moved in 18 months ago. Give us a chance to empty boxes!), means that the dry rot got triggered off and then had a constant source of mositure to draw from. The man says if we are careful at removing the floor boards, there is no reason why he can't treat them so we can use them again! I don't even have to lose my beautiful plant, just make sure I have a waterproof dish under it, no terracotta, and to be careful with overwatering.He was talking about a few hundred pounds, as opposed to the few thousands that the others were talking about. Spending money on something like thisn is never good, but at least I can see (affordable)light at the end of the tunnel!!