Is my floor breathing?
 

I've just removed several decades of carpets/lino/newspaper etc from
what my wife affectionately terms "the damp room". I knew there was a
damp-proof membrane underneath the carpets (the only room with one in
the house), and expected to find a concrete slab underneath that. After
scraping off the brittle bitumen and cloth layer, I instead 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.

I had planned to excavate the ground floor throughout the house
installing insulation etc, but am now having second thoughts. 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.

Perhaps I should do things the old-fashioned way, but then I'll have
building regs after me, but I don't want to live in a damp smelly house
....

LGF

Quarry tiles were always used as a damp proof membrane due to there
non-porus nature. You may well find there is still damp there if you
use a damp meter and measure between each quarry tile.

If it's drying out nicely I'd just leave it alone except for a good
scrub - caustic soda perhaps if theyre scruffy? . Building regs don't
make you do new work if you don't want to, but they control it if you
do (if you tell them!)

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.