extension? etc.

You are reading a single comment by @atk and its replies. Click here to read the full conversation.

•

hoefla
I may have asked this before, but have not got any more decisive in my thinking...

Does anyone have experience of breaking out a concrete floor and replacing it - either with more concrete and insulation under screed, or with raised timber floor?

I have a 1915-ish house, brick walls, raised timber ground floor, which would have originally stepped down into the little kitchen at the back onto presumably quarry tiles on blinding or whatever went under them. It's now level through from the hall to the kitchen, I haven't done any proper investigation but I assume at some point it's been filled in and concreted. It's bloody cold in winter and I suspect is contributing to damp issues.

Does anyone still have a step down kitchen - if so do you have air-bricks/vents from under the raised floor into the lower kitchen? Doesn't it smell damp / you get small beasties in the kitchen? I'm trying to work out how the hallway was supposed to ventilate originally. It doesn't make sense to be a dead corner, and in a terrace you can't go sideways.

I think my options are:
- Leave the floor, add a thin layer of insulation on top so you step up. Easiest to do, won't help with damp.
- Break out concrete, dig down a little and replace with new, plus insulation on top, assuming there is already a DPM down there, also not much help with the damp unless there's an obvious gap (eg lapping up to a DPC)
- Break out concrete, make new insulated raised timber floor, add underfloor vents to back wall.
I am also planning to insulate the rest of the ground floor (and some of the walls). Anyone done this? (Themselves or getting people in.)

•

atk in reply to @hoefla

Does anyone still have a step down kitchen

Yes.

if so do you have air-bricks/vents from under the raised floor into the lower kitchen?

There's been a large gap there since we redid the living room floor. Will be putting a generous vent as kitchen is redone. Previously very damp in that corner, seems fine now.

Doesn't it smell damp / you get small beasties in the kitchen? I'm trying to work out how the hallway was supposed to ventilate originally. It doesn't make sense to be a dead corner, and in a terrace you can't go sideways.

It did while it was drying out initially but seems to have gone. You get the odd whiff of damp in the morning when it's been really wet out for a few days, but that could just as easily be from the poorly fitting cellar door (house is 1890s, no DPanything under floor or in cellar, just dirt and bad concreting). Kitchen itself is well ventilated, some days you can feel quite the breeze from under the step, very reassuring. We have a fair few spiders around an about the house, can't say there's more or less since we opened that up. No sign of anything else crawling about though.

•

hoefla in reply to @atk

Very useful, thanks. I will assume it originally vented at the step down.
My preference is to break out the concrete and replace with a new insulated raised timber floor but I imagine that would be quite fiddly and expensive.

How do I bathroom / kitchen / extension? etc.

About

LFGSS