We moved into a extensively renovated 1890's cottage in December. Sinc
then we have noticed an earthy smell in the lounge. This is th original part of the house with additions built much later. I'm tol that many properties of this age in this location ( East Anglian, UK where built without proper foundations directly onto the soil. Th lounge has solid walls and had a damproof treatment carried out on i some years ago. There is no sign of damp in any of the rooms.
Has anyone any idea what could be causing the smell? The floor in th lounge is concrete but If, as I suspect, the floor isn't seale properly any suggestions as to the best course of action to get rid o the smell?
I had a similar problem when I moved into my Yorkshire hovel years ago. It turned out that what passed as the hearth (flags cemented directly onto damp earth) in the capped chimney was the source of the smell. The temporary fix was to removed the flags and the mud immediately beneath and put in loose stones that allowed the earth surface to dry out. It is still in operation (mumble mumble) years later waiting on me getting round to replacing the whole floor which has a very shoddy DPM.
We have it in one room downstairs. We have lessened it by opening up the chimney and unsealing the old sash windows so drafts come through. Additionally we always have the central heating radiator come on for an hour in that room every morning, even in the summer.
Although I tend to agree with you about the cause, I can't face digging the floor in that room up at present ....
The typical scenario in properties of this type is that over the years, the outside ground level has been built up with various layers of earth, concrete and whatever else is needed to install plastic gnomes.
The air bricks get covered over and have probably become filled with crud anyway. The result is no air flow. That results in said earthy smell as a result of lack of air flow if one is very lucky; wet rot/cellar fungus and weevils if one is semi lucky and dry rot if one is unlucky.
Two things need to be done.
- Identify the air bricks at the edges of the house and check that they are clear and unblocked. This may mean excavating a channel about
250mm wide to two courses below the air brick and filling it with gravel.
- Check for damage to the timber. Dry rot manifests as white cotton wool stuff and/or a purple/brown fruiting body. Wood tends to break into fairly large cubed structure. Treatment is removal of all affected timber plus healthy timber from a metre around, removal of plaster in th vicinity if the fungus has reached it and treatment with a proper solvent based dry rot killer. This is followed by reinstatement.
Wet rot/cellar fungus/weevil is much more common and tends to attack the ends of joists causing them to crumble. This again involves cutting away the affected wood, but often repair can be done by building a sleeper wall inside the house wall and using that to support the main joists plus the ends of new ones.
Ventilation, clearing air bricks are the most effective solutions. There is no need to use injection damp proof courses if this is done. Finally, yes, there should absolutely be some digging.
Many thanks for the valuable comments and advice. The outside of th property has had a lot of work done on it so airbricks may have bee covered, although I thought the floor was solid.
Anyway as soon as the work in the bathroom is complete, cosmeti revamp, I'll start investigating properly.
Are you sure that the air bricks are not simply below ground level?
The normal construction for a house of this era was to have a suspended timber floor and air bricks around the periphery of the building to ventilate it.
Then people not knowing any better would build up the outside ground level over the years, block air bricks and DPC if there was one.
A more recent "house renovation" trick has been to take out decayed timber floors and pour in concrete. This should of course involve the use of a DPC layer, properly installed to prevent damp penetrating through. However, I have certainly seen houses, of a similar description to yours where an old property has been purchased by a cowboy developer and had this treatment but without the DPC layer in the floor. The result is dampness and the earthy smell you describe. The motivation is a quick purchase, fix and sale by the "developer".
If you are certain that this hasn't been done, then one possibility would be to seal the floor with a heavy grade material normally used for tanking cellars. Whether that would work is another matter. It might cause migrationof the damp elsewhere. The other alternative would be to take the floor out altogether and replace it with one constructed with a DPC.
I'm not the OP so I haven't got the problem; my house is circa 1800, built wihout foundation (confirmed when excavations made for extension) and the original flooring (stone) has been removed with DPC/concrete in it's place.
(I was adding my 'take' on his possible problem with a comparative construction, if indeed he is correct)
Most people use *paper* chains for Christmas decorations.... Was the need for the SDS drill because your chains came from one of the shipyards on the Clyde? ;-)
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