Service
Timber treatment, dry rot & wet rot in North Somerset
Dry rot and wet rot attack structural timbers quietly. By the time a floor feels soft, the decay is usually well established. We diagnose the fungus, find the moisture source and treat both.
Rot in older homes around here
Suspended timber ground floors, cellar heads, bay window sub-floors and roof timbers are the common sites. The trigger is nearly always a moisture problem that’s been running for months or years: a leaking gutter, bridged DPC, defective sub-floor ventilation or a plumbing leak.
Wet rot
The more common of the two. The timber is dark, soft, cracked along the grain and often has a thin brown fungal growth. It’s confined to the wet area and won’t spread into dry wood, deal with the water and remove the decayed section and it stops.
Dry rot
Serpula lacrymans. Deep cuboidal cracking, a grey-white mycelium sometimes with lilac tints, rusty-red spore dust, and a damp mushroom smell. It can push strands through mortar and plaster to reach dry timber elsewhere, so treatment has to account for everything the outbreak could have reached, not just the visible decay.
What we do
- Identify the fungus and map the extent. Lifting boards or cutting inspection openings where needed.
- Fix the moisture source. Sub-floor ventilation and damp repairs: the decay cannot continue without water.
- Cut out decayed timber back to sound wood, plus a margin, and replace structurally where required.
- Apply treatment. Fungicidal treatment to remaining and new timber; for dry rot, masonry sterilisation and isolation of retained timbers as needed.
- Pre-treated replacement timber and, where appropriate, physical barriers between masonry and new wood.
Where we find rot we’ll also check for woodworm, decayed and damp timber is far more attractive to wood-boring beetles.
Where we treat timber treatment & rot
Common questions
What's the difference between wet rot and dry rot?
Both are wood-destroying fungi. Wet rot stays local to timber that is actually wet and stops once it dries. Dry rot (Serpula lacrymans) is far more serious: it can spread through masonry to find new timber and needs much more thorough treatment. Correct identification changes the whole job.
Do you deal with the cause of the damp too?
Always. Rot is a moisture problem first. There’s no point treating a joist end if the penetrating damp or rising damp feeding it is left in place.
Will floors or ceilings need to come up?
Sometimes, to expose the full extent of decay and treat sound timber beyond it. We open up the minimum needed, and reinstate or advise on reinstatement. Structural replacement of joists or beams is included where decay has gone too far.
Think you have timber trouble?
Call or request a callback and we'll arrange a proper look at the problem.