What rot / fungus is this?

[OllieCR0]

I just bought a house in the East Midlands and discovered what looks like fungus growing on/in the outbuilding wall.

Is this dry rot, wet rot or something else?

I'm thinking to put an extra freezer in here but don't want to risk treading spores into the house if it can be avoided!

Thank you!

Background
-> Outbuilding is perhaps 80+ years old and does have some rot and old woodworm in the timber/tile roof
-> This wall is also the retaining wall for about 1.5m tall earth. The ground above is a vegetable patch, so this wall has lots of wet soil the other side
-> This side of the room was covered when viewing / doing surveys

 

[ree]

OP,
What your pics show is early dry rot. Some call it Cellar Rot but it keeps it simple to call it Dry Rot.
Remove all wood, cellulose, and storage items away from the wall. Give ventilation a chance.
Dry scrub the wall down to remove most obvious traces.
Then brush on a coat of liquid fungicide - flood the brickwork. Repeat every few days for say three applications. Do the floor once only.
In time it might come back - if it does then repeat the above. But with good ventilation you should be OK.
Does any part of the house butt against the high ground level?

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

It's not really contagious, the spores are blowing about everywhere. It will grow anywhere the conditions are right.

If your house is dry then it won't transfer.

But... I wouldn't put anything electrical in there. It may quickly rust and/or stop working. Definitely power it via an RCD within the house if you really want to do this.

You could dig the soil away from the wall and retain it with a new wall. It should then dry out naturally. You'll never make it dry while it's retaining soil.

 

[^woody^]

It's not really contagious, the spores are blowing about everywhere. It will grow anywhere the conditions are right.

If your house is dry then it won't transfer.

Very bad advice and understanding.

The fungus does spread and does spread far and easily, and then any timber is at risk. It does not need timber to spread either.

Yes, the fungus needs certain conditions to survive, but not to spread. There can be timber elsewhere that are currently fungus-free but meet the conditions to promote growth.

 

[wessex101]

Before we go down the "dry rot" rabbit hole a bit of perspective might be in order. There are countless types of fungus and whilst there are only a few types of dry rot, they are not that common.
Back in the day you could send samples to TRADA and their experts would identify the fungus, it used to cost around £200. Of all the samples I sent which I was convinced were dry rot none of them were, it was usually a wet rot called cellar fungus. Last time I checked they were charging about £1500 for this service so I haven't used it for years.
My point it there is no way anyone can identify dry rot from a photograph, it needs an expert with a microscope.

 

[ree]

Poster #5,
I'm sorry that: "none of your samples" were identified as dry rot - it just goes to show what your rabbit hole experiences will do.
You say: "no way anyone can identify dry rot from a photograph" - oh yes there is, I've just done it.
And further, I've done it many times before.
Do you imagine that after being trained in classrooms, in the lab & on test sites, that we who have had such training are going to be mailing samples away for identification? Please get a perspective?

 

[mrrusty]

Look at picture #5. The "fungus" is brick shaped. Could just as easily be efflorescence. I see this on the bricks in the back of one of my fireplaces (which are exposed 100 year old bricks) in humid weather.

The white threads though could easily be the start of dryrot. As above, difficult to tell without analysis.

 

[ree]

.

 

[mrrusty]

My wife is a biological scientist. Yes, I understand thank you.

here's fluffy efflorescence behind my gas fire growing on salt-poisoned bricks

 

[mrrusty]

post #8

The white threads though could easily be the start of dryrot.

If you can tell it's dry rot and not one of the other 15,000 varieties of fungus found in the UK from a picture on a forum you must be eating kryptonite or something.

 

[stuart45]

I've seen those photos on another forum said to be Mine rot. I wouldn't know the difference myself.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

All rot needs water. No water, no rot.

You don't need the fungus-spotter's i-spy book, just get rid of the water and don't worry about it.