My porch was foolishly built with no damp course or brick support wall. As such the timber used rests directly on the ground. On the exposed side fungus is now coming through on the inside. I will redesign the footings, but in the meantime can any body suggest a tried and tested fungicide either proprietary or home made ?
You really need to ID the fungus. It is not good news if it is wet rot but it is even worse news if it is dry rot. Whatever it is don't let the fruiting bodies get to the stage of producing spores and don't delay.
Once the weather warms up the fungal hyphae will be growing again and they can cover 1m/year in all directions or more if you are unlucky.
You can DIY the ID but unless you have seen the real thing it is difficult to identify wood rot fungi reliably since they almost never look like the textbooks and there are loads of less common ones as well.
I wouldn't trust the stuff in the sheds to work and nothing DIY stands even the remotest chance of working. Usually the advice is remove all rotten wood and at least 30cm beyond into sound wood then treat the rest with something suitably nasty (and keep a careful eye on it).
+1 to almost all of that. If it turns out to be dry rot, the main thing to worry about is whether it can get through to your house floor joists either on the ground or the first floor.
Age of house and/or type of construction?
When you say resting on the ground, do you mean on the earth, or (say) a brick or concrete path or driveway.
The spores are floating around everywhere in the air anyway, so having the fruiting bodies doesn't make any difference to reinfection risk. You need any timber they might land on to be no more than 15% moisture content to prevent them germinating. That could be a struggle in an unheated porch anyway, even if it wasn't wrongly built. Most timber in unheated areas will be higher than that at this time of year anyway from air humidity, but it will be drier in the summer unless it's being fed with water via the ground or leaks or condensation.
Dry rot in particular once started and with a moisture source, can seek out timber which isn't moist, and infect it using its hyphae. Wet rots (which are more common) tend to live just in the area of wet timber.
The only really effective pressure treated timber you can buy anymore is roofing battens. Effective treatments are no longer permitted for other timber because of their toxicity. Buildings need to be designed so timber stays dry to protect against rot.
Well by the time you see the fruiting bodies the wood will be riddled with it way past where you can see. I've not had much luck myself with that as once the fungus does die, assuming it does the wood tends to disintegrate. Corners of sheds where the uprights are made of untreated timber go that way and of course other forms of rot. Brian
NT
I spotted that our local fencing supplier stocks it in, what I think are, 5 gallon drums. (or their metric equivalent)
I believe you *can* still get real creosote (maybe trade suppliers?) but be aware that the creosote substitute found in the sheds, whilst less toxic, is also less effective.
they also has "Creocote"
Which is the much less effective substitute.
Whatever's in creocote it's as hopeless as the rest.
NT
after working out how to hold the rest up...
Arr! so they does!
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