DIYbanter - View Single Post

wrote:

I've just removed several decades of carpets/lino/newspaper etc from
what my wife affectionately terms "the damp room".

After scraping off the brittle bitumen and cloth layer, I discovered
an almost complete quarry tiled floor, laid on the ground beneath. I
reckon it is the original floor from when our "damp room" was the
entire ground floor of a cottage (only 10' wide).

The room seems to be in the process of losing it's bone-shuddering
chill and taking on a warm and welcoming atmosphere. This was
noticeable within hours of removing the membrane. The tiles were damp
initially, they seem bone-dry now.

Dare I say it, but the walls seem to be drying out.

There is no dpc in most of the house. The walls are 2' thick ironstone with no dpc. In the more modern part of the house there is a dpc (but no
cavity) and the stone beneath is looking knackered.

You could get a surveyor in if you intend to do some floor renovation.

An old stone on earth-floor cottage would also have had a lot of
draught. Not least among them, updraught from a vast chimney. There
would have been no other heating apart from the kitchen stove of
course. And maybe a copper heater in the outhouse for washing on
Mondays.

They did not have much of a smell or damp problem and their
owners/tennants were likely to be outdoor workers with much more
durability than the modern crop of cottage dweller.