Title says it all really. Just been taking to my mum, she just had a quote in from a dry rot treatment specialist to spray what amounts to approx 25 square meters of brick and woodwork at a cost of a tad over two grand!
(Note that this is just the spraying - all the rotten timber, plaster etc has been removed, and new timber installed already)
When she told me at first I thought she said 180 + VAT, to which I thought fair enough - especially as it comes with a guarantee. When I worked out there was an extra zero on the end I nearly fell off my chair!
£30 at a rough guess -for a gallon of Cuprinol, paint roller and brush, gloves, mask and some old clothes to bin afterwards. Of course you get a free paint roller and paint brush, gloves and a mask with it. I can?t allow for the price of the old clothes. I hope you understand.
Cuprinol make a range of dry rot treatment chemicals. There is a dry rot killer for timber, another for masonry and a 5 star timber treatment. Details on their web site. On line prices vary between £20 and about £30 for 5 litres./
Somewhat under 50 quid for materials - and the rest for the warranty. Which is near useless, of course, because the firm will be liquidated before it's needed.
Yup - I found those shortly after posting the first message.... Looks like with 3 coats etc as recommended, plus some form of pump up sprayer for getting into the nooks and crannies, I could do the whole lot for under 150 quid!
tbh, if the damp and ventilation problems have been sorted out I don't really see the necessity. If not, then then £2k would be an awful lot better spent on sorting the base problem out!
For belt and braces ~£100 ought to get you the chemicals and probably purchase a cheap sprayer especially from the purpose!
Found the link I had been looking for over the last couple of weeks - I came across this stuff when researching dry rot after it occurred in my wife's flat following a leak from the soil stack in the flat upstairs....
If you have removed all infected timber and - MORE IMPORTANLY - removed the source of the damp which allowed the dry rot to grow in the first place, you have no need to use any chemicals. Dry Rot will not suddenly materialise on brickwork because there are no nutrients for it to feed on. It needs to convert the cellular structure of the timber back into basic sugars etc. and there aren't any such ingredients in bricks. If you have damp timber however(probably in the region of 25%+ moisture content), it will grow on that. If you've removed this though, and from your post you have, you should be safe.
If you are considering plastering the brickwork, do the first coat in a 3:1 sand and cement base, this will ensure your protection.
Perhaps the quote was to 'irrigate' the wall rather than just spray it. If so, avoid it like the plague. It has the potential to do as much damage as you're trying to cure!!
You'll also find that the guarantee on the treatment only lasts as long as it takes for the area to 'dry out'. Any recurrence after that isn't covered. But of course, Dry Rot doesn't grow on dry timber anyway. Bit of a conundrum that don't you think ;))
In short, the best treatment for Dry Rot is to keep the area dry. If you do, you will never get dry rot, or any other kind of rot for that matter!>
I would first question the reason for doing it. Youve removed the old wood, and wish to protect the replacement wood presumably. Whether that rots really depends on the dampness it sees rather than anything else. The cure for dry rot is dryness. Note dry rot is a misleading name, dry rot requires damp to occur, like any other mould.
If your replacement timber gets as wet, it will rot regardless, it might just take a year or two longer.
Dry rot does not affect brickwork: it can grow on it but has no effect on it.
There have also been complaints of health problems following such chemical treatments.
I'd just sort out the problem instead, the cause of the wood getting damp.
A bit of background: the house is currently subject to an insurance claim (seven years and running!) to fix damage caused by settlement / tree roots etc. One of the pre-conditions of this work being done however was the eradication of dry rot that was discovered in the front of the property (and the adjoining semi). Other conditions also included dealing with the trees and installing root barriers in various places - which was the local councils responsibility. This has also been done.
The source of the water was a leaking downpipe which has been replaced. The woodwork replacement required in both properties has been quite extensive since the bresemer beam that runs along a significant part of the front of the property (and actually supports a corner of the building as a cantilever) needed replacing. Also the lintel over the bay window on the first floor, plus some floor and ceiling joist replacement on both floors has also been done. Needless to say the insurers have refused to pay for any of this work.
Mainly to satisfy the insurers such that they will pay out on the much bigger settlement claim...
Yes I appreciate that... I did a fair amount of research into it a few years back.
Personally I would not be that inclined to do much spraying (if any). All the new timber that has gone in is tannalised - any cut ends etc were treated in cuprinol wood preserver as well. The plaster etc has been hacked off, and there is only a tiny amount of myceilium type filaments left embedded in the masonry of the party wall - which ought not to have a supply of moisture now.
The only very slight concern is that since the place is built with 12" solid brick walls, there will always remain the possibility of the moisture content in the wall being higher that one would like. This is not helped by one architectural feature where the wall between the downstairs windowsill and the ground is raked at an angle such that the base protrudes a little beyond the windowsill:-
Side view:
| There have also been complaints of health problems following such
I am concerned about this myself.... hence why I would rather do the work myself so as to use the minimum necessary. Having said that, once the problem is sorted the plan was to sell the house and move anyway.
Just about any building work causes intense lung irritation - it all makes DUST and that needs to be coughed up.
The cxhemicals used in rot treatment stink and are probably fairly nasty
- use a mask, and rubber gloves and goggles, spray it quickly, open the windows and go down the pub.
The ONLY benefit to having someone else do it is they may offer a paper guarantee which may help the sale of the house. My house came with such, and it wasn't worth the paper it was written on, since most of the rot was in places no sprayer could have reached, and all the so called damp proofing only worked where it had actually been applied, which due to the design of the house, was not everywhere.
As far as penetrating damp goes, it would have been advisable to insert new timbers over a DPM or somesuch.
Tanalised timber still needs sawn ends teated. BTW.
Just spray it and teh brickwork thoroughly. Soppng wet is how teh fungus likes it. Once some heatng is in teh place and teh main source op leak eliminated., it will be sound for 60 years probly.
Yup a decent organic solvent rated respirator would be my first choice along with one of those disposable all body suits....
That and the fact it is them being exposed to any potential nasties... Then again it is probably the long term exposure from living is a treated building that is more of an issue than the "one off" exposure to spay it in the first place.
This is the only potential sticking point - if the insurers insist on a guarantee before allowing the rest of the work. Still I suppose it must be possible to purchase an insured underwriting for this sort of work since that is what the more reputable companies will do rather than carry the risk themselves I presume.
The new timbers at most risk from this (I expect) are the ground floor joists near the front wall. They are now hung from galvanised joist hangers - so no longer directly in contact with it, so that ought to be better. That ISTM is one area where there would be value in sterilising the masonry in those parts, so that there is less chance of any spores in it getting re-activated if moisture gets in.
I must admit to being very impressed with the carpenter who is doing the wood restoration - so far all the work has been first rate and very reasonably priced. He seems to have paid very good attention to detail treating cut ends - even remembering things like treating the notches in the joists where the central heating pipes run etc.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.