The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
The Care Of Wood Work In The Home
During the war, many outbreaks of dry-rot originated at the tops of buildings and worked downwards. The roofs were burned off by incendiary bombs, thousands of gallons of water were poured in to quell the conflagrations and then the top floors were covered over with felt to preserve the buildings until permanent repairs could be undertaken. The soaked timbers of the top floors, sealed in humid darkness by the felt, formed the ideal breeding ground for dry-rot, and we know of one large office building in the city where £100,000 worth of damage was caused by this form of 'first aid'.
One very important point is that dry-rot can exist in a comparatively isolated and dormant state in a neglected and unoccupied building; it can then be set off like a prairie fire by the installation of central or other continuous heating, which draws the moisture out of the walls and into the woodwork, and in the case of central heating the pipes create a most dangerous 'fug' under the damp floor boards. It is, therefore, essential always to see that a building is in thorough structural repair and free from fungoid growths before installing central heating.
The Recognition Of Dry-Rot
THE early recognition of dry-rot is essential if heavy cost of treatment and replacement is to be avoided. The first indication is usually an offensive, damp and musty smell, rather like toadstools. Supplementary clues are damp stains on walls, flaking of paint from woodwork, waviness and the outward bulging of skirting and floor boards, window and door linings and pipe casings, etc. Wood which is attacked has a dull sound when struck and does not 'ring' the same as does healthy timber; also it can be easily penetrated by a penknife blade. In advanced cases, floors may drop away from skirting through the collapse of the supporting joists and holes may appear in the actual floors or other boarding. Woodwork round the holes will be found criss-crossed by deep cracks, both in the direction of and across the grain, which break the boards into a series of irregular cubes. In an empty or neglected house which is suffering from a virulent outbreak, there may be a fine carpet of rusty red dust on floors or ledges. This carpet consists of millions of spores, thrown out by the fruiting bodies of the fungus, which may itself be hidden away under the floor, behind paneling or inside a dark cupboard.
