Lude Generation

1. House

So as many know I lost my job about 4 weeks back and the day before I found out about that, my lodger gave his notice so I have no rent income either until I get another one in, which I need asap!

He moved out in the week leading up to the bank hol, so I started to crash through some of the DIY stuff on the house that I can't do while I have a lodger in, but need to do before I can get another one in, like replacing the bath that was knackered (serviceable but only just, it was a cheap crap plastic one installed by the previous owners and had got to the stage where the bottom felt like it was going to go imminently).
Managed to pick a replacement steel bath up 'kin cheap due to what I think is a pricing error on a website and ripped the old one out on Saturday morning ok, but then found this...



Closer up view


FFS, the joist running under where the bath is, is rotten to hell and the beam that attaches to it and runs through to the bedroom next door is also rotten.

View looking towards the bathroom from the other bedroom


That beam supports the entire bedroom floor (all the joists in that room run into the beam, not through into the adjacent wall). So that beam is supported one end by the party wall and the other end, by running into this rotten joist in the bathroom.

The rotten joist in the bathroom and the first joist the other side of it (attached to the rotten beam) also holds up the dividing blockwork wall between the bathroom and bedroom, via the floorboards that run under it (60% of which are also rotten).



Needless to say, the bath hasn't gone back in and I'm now begging showers off my ex lodger in his new place!

Insurance doesn't cover this so it's a hand in pocket job.
No way I can afford to get a builder so I'm gonna have to fix it myself. Hoping I can limit the damage to just taking the ceiling down in the kitchen, floorboards up in landing, back bedroom and bathroom (chopping the ones in the bathroom to avoid having to re-tile the floor!), acro-stands everywhere and not having to also take down the ceiling in the hall (that was only replastered/decorated last summer! )


2. Boiler

Sat watching a film on Saturday evening drowning sorrows in beer/vodka and thought it felt a bit cold. Checked the central heating and the boiler had a fault code that wouldn't reset, so no hot water or heating either!

Took it apart on Sunday to work out what was wrong and discovered there was a minor error made by the person that installed it (me lol) that stopped me from taking something apart (couldn't get the condensate trap out cause of the system fill loop clashing underneath it). So had to drain the system to re-plumb that - very annoying...

3. Lude no.1 (UKDM)

Went out to Homebase to get a fitting for the re-plumbing and while I was there I remembered the MOT/insurance were due around now. Drove home, finished the boiler and then checked... MOT and insurance expired yesterday . Lucky I didn't pass mr plod en route!
It needs new rear calipers and the exhaust has a blow that needs welding up (seam on the stainless backbox is leaking - out of warranty due to being fitted by previous owner). Won't be buying calipers soon, so that's now off the road!

4. Lude no.2 (JDM)

So went off Sunday evening to drop the missus at her gym and me to go round ex-lodgers for a shower, jumped the JDM (hasn't been driven for about a month waiting for weather to improve so I can finish putting it back together) and set off. Pulls to the left, smell of burning. FFS, front left calliper binding

Grrr... So no car on the road as of today either.
Fortunately I do already have replacement front calipers for the JDM, so I just need to get them cleaned up and fitted. But gotta fit that in around fixing the house and finding a new job.



Still, could be worse eh?!

At least you're not dead bud!

That sucks about your joists The other issues are only minor in comparison You've definitely got the right idea to tackle it from below though, so at least it sounds like you know what you're doing to save a few pennies

All I can say is good luck for the minute, but if you need advise, this place does appear to be a fountain of knowledge

woahhh that is a bad weekend - hopefully that should be your share for the forseeable future tho

i do a lot of checks for this type of wet rot as i look after student flats for private landlords. its normally just the sealant around the bath/shower that causes these leaks - thats why i redo the sealants every 6 months without fail.

having said that ive only redone the sealant in my own bathroom about once a decade...
im away to remove the bath panel and check under there now......

certainly a £5-£7k job for firm to come in a fix

+rep to cheer you up

Dude - don't panic! in this situation its is always good to look over your options.
I had a problem that looked like this about 10 years ago and it wasn't as bad as I first thought (also discovered it when replacing a bath - ended up doing whole room.

If money is an issue I would be sneaky. Be sure you know what you are dealing with and get two builders in that do free quotes. Ask them exactly what the problem is and ask them to give you 2 quotes one "bare minimum" and one "rolls Royce" where you don't have to do anything. Make no promises. If you get the same story from the 2 builders you have more confidence in knowing exactly what you need to do and have a good idea of how to go about it. (I am assuming you are not a pro builder - if so - ignore this bit).

In my place. I had to let it dry for a week and then we braced the rotten bit. We also took up a load of boards and replaced with marine ply. This might be completely different - but when I first saw the black horror I had unearthed it was difficult not to panic. I had plans to rip up this that and the other - after a talk with the builder he had convinced me there was a much better and less intrusive way of doing it. Not saying yours is the same but at least you'll know for sure.

The other stuff is a major pain in the arse - but some o fit can wait......roll on warmer weather.

vanzep wrote: having said that ive only redone the sealant in my own bathroom about once a decade...
im away to remove the bath panel and check under there now......

Yeah good idea!

The thing I'm annoyed at with the rot is that I've owned the house for 10 years. The bath wasn't sealed when I bought (and there was no shower) but had all new tiles, so I installed a shower (without taking the bath out) and sealed round the bath. I've re-sealed it at least once in that time too.

It hasn't leaked since we've owned it (the walls aren't damp) so that rot was started by the previous numpty's who used the bath without a seal. I had no way of knowing the rot had started and also didn't know just how massive the bloody hole in the wall around the soil pipe was, letting more damp in. Pre-dates my ownership and has just been growing, un-noticed ever since grrr...

The crap workmanship around the soil pipe shouldn't surprise me I suppose - stripped the wallpaper off in another room to discover they'd filled in the hole where an air brick used to be, with a bit of carpet and then wall papered over it!

Bath panels definitely coming off during second visit on any house I look to buy in future!

like op says it can look worse as first glance - his advice to open it all up and let it air for a few weeks is sound - there are some specific treatments on the market to treat wet rot and harden some timbers up but its like rust on the ludes its probably best to cut it out and replace with new.

you will probably do a better job than some of the specialist wet rot/damp firms out there - just a major inconvenience.

Cheers guys.

Yeah, it's funny, when I found this I didn't panic or even get annoyed. These sort of things just don't really faze me now! (Whereas the problems on both cars and with the boiler really did!!! )

Having found the problem though and given a few of the factors, i.e.;
1. Where the joists are (under a bath where there's always a chance leaks might happen again, start further rot and that all go un-noticed again)
2. What these particular joists do (one of them is the only link holding up one wall and an entire room floor)
I need to cut out and replace the rot properly.
Just can't take the risk on treating and hardening.

I did some research on the internet over the weekend, worked how I thought I might repair it, sketched it out and e-mailed off to this company this morning, for some advice. http://www.timber-repair.co.uk/Timber%2 ... htm#Joists

Just had a good half hour chat with one of the guys there talking it through and he's suggested some more options.
It's a bit involved, but we might have found a way of doing it without taking down any ceilings!
He's gonna sketch out a repair method for me tomorrow and some indicative prices and we'll see where we go from there.

good stuff - sounds promising

Yeah better take back the floor and ceiling to have a good look all round before you can decide what needs doing.

I had a rotten joist underneath our shower, but it wasn't supporting anything by itself, just sharing the load of the shower, the end of the bath, a partition wall, and the floor. I stripped back all the lath and plaster from the ceiling below, luckily there had been plasterboard chucked up underneath so the ceiling didn't have to come apart downstairs. I'd suggest you treat the whole area with wet/dry/woodworm treatment. I used up a 5L can from Wickes. The last thing you want is wet rot turning into dry rot. The rotten joist was sandwiched either side with 2 long planks of 18mm plywood, PVA glued to the joist and then wood-screwed along the whole length. Then I replaced all the floorboards above it with wet grade t&g chipboard to spread the load a bit more.

Dude, I have a pair of rear calipers you can have for the cost of postage if it helps at all?