Long Standing Leak - Mold / Rot spores

[Argute]

I’ve moved into a new property and discovered a long standing leak in the kitchen.

I’ve lifted off two layers of vinyl and exposed the pine floorboards beneath, and after getting in a pair of fans and dehumidifier and running them for three days I thought that things may be salvageable.

Unfortunately I missed a body of red spores growing on a wall adjacent to where the appliance was leaking and have now potentially blown a load of rot spores throughout the room.

I plan on getting in a timber surveyor and looking at treatment options - does anyone have any advice on what to do especially now I may have contaminated the entire property with these spores?

thanks

 

[foxhole]

You home contains mould spores most of the year , just become a problem if you have poor ventilation and cold damp areas for them to thrive.
You may need to replace some rotten timbers .

 

[Deleted member 174758]

As @foxhole says your home is basically awash with all kinds of spores all of the time, but the spores only become a problem if they land on damp, unprotected or untreated timber. They cannot propagate where there is no moisture. So the simplest way to deal with visible dry rot or wet rot is always to cut out the infected timber, plus a section of the "good" timber next to it (to control the spread), cure the source of the moisture, dry out the area (with a dehumidifier and/or an infra red heater) and finally replace the timber which has been cut out at the start. You may also need to ensure that the underfloor area will subsequently be adequately ventilated (Is there an air brick or bricks? If so are they blocked?)

Unfortunately treatment of rot with chemicals isn't always that effective against advanced rot. This is simply because a surface application of any chemical normally won't soak into the timber more than a few millimetres and dry rot in particular can go a lot deeper than this, following any water that has soaked into the timber slowly, perhaps over several years; cross cut a piece of pressure treated timber and you can see this first hand. This photo of pressure treated ship lap cladding which has been crosscut illustrates the point about limited penetration

Fortunately your timber doesn't appear to have suffered any damage at this stage, so simply painting the area with a proprietary product such as Cuprinol after drying it all out with a dehumidifier should be sufficient

 

[Argute]

Thank you both very much for the replies.

The board removed looks like it’s suffered water damage, but I’m not sure it’s actually ‘rotting’ - be it wet or dry.

I will keep running the dehumidifier and get a treatment applied ASAP - hopefully there will be a minimal amount of wood to cut out.

Is a boron treatment advisable or a different, proprietary treatment better suited?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

You check for wet rot in particular by pushing a small screwdriver into the wood. If the wood is punky (soft) and spongy and you can push the screwdriver in more than a few millimetres, then you have rot. This can also happen with dry rot, although, the wood is more likely to just be crumbly. See here for more details. I cannot think what those red spores you found were, though - most wood digesting fungi are white, cream or occasionally yellow or dark grey/black. Dry rot in particular has a very distinctive musty smell. BTW water marking isn't significant in terms of rot

TBH, to repeat what I said before, the best way to deal with it is to sort out the leak then dry it all out. If the timber isn't rotted then treating the surfaces with some form of preservative may help in the future, but with no rot damage I doubt that it makes much difference what you use, and keeping things dry (which requires adequate ventilation) is the best preventative strategy

 

[HERTS P&D]

Have you found and fixed the leak?

Andy

 

[Argute]

Thanks @JobAndKnock for taking the time to write such detailed replies.

The boards have maybe 9 inches beneath them and there is an airbrick that is functioning so it may be most of the water was able to drain off below….

As soon as I realised the floor had some kind of water damage I ripped the dishwasher out to find a large hole in the drainage pipe…. So yes @HERTS P&D it certainly is stopped and the dishwasher in question has made its way to the scrapyard!


I’ll keep the dehumidifier running to continue drying it out and do some further damage assessment over the weekend. None of the wood at ‘ground zero’ (the space where the dishwasher was) is so damaged you can poke a screwdriver through it though maybe I need to test that theory over a wider area.

There are some horror stories about dry rot that suggest you must cut out 1m in each direction and it’s akin to a death sentence on a building or the time within, but it sounds like it may be manageable, if it’s actually confirmed to be present in this case.

There are a few resources that suggest red spores/body are a rot type of Mold but I suppose the best way to find out is to test it….

 

[HERTS P&D]

I think you are doing very well, you have found the leak, removed the faulty item and getting it all dried out. Keep up the good work.

Andy

 

[Argute]

So the floor is drying and continuing to read <10% moisture across the boards.

I'm now wondering whether or not to replace the nastiest boards given they’re not soft or rotting, just showing white and stained patches.

They’ll be covered up with new ply and vinyl so the looks aren’t important, I just don’t want a problem in years to come by not doing this properly…

 

[Deleted member 174758]

In that case it's probably easiest to treat the boards with Cuprinol or borax (to kill any remaining mould on the surface, although drying it out should have killed it off) and just replace them.