Workers cottage with concreted base

[poordeveloper]

Hi ppl,

A couple of the old workers cottages I've been looking at in inner city Melbourne have had their wooden floors removed and concrete poured in place. The house had then been carpeted/tiled. Speaking to an agent at one of the places today, he reckons it's not ideal because these places have blue stone foundations and were designed to have some airflow under the house. Might have contributed to some rising damp which was noticeable in some parts.

I'm a bit put off by it, firstly because I love the look of aged polished boards and secondly because I'd ideally like to install something like hydronic heating and I figured the pipes would be routed under the boards.

What other disadvantages are there to this type of floor? Are there alternatives other than carpet/tiles?

Thanks in advance!

 

[RumpledElf]

Its common because termites eat the old floors and its cheaper/easier to get concrete in DIY.

Old concrete floors can be very damp if you have a house like my old one where some idiot did the concrete himself - no damp course - and it is all hunky dory until you get a flash flood, the water comes in through the old sub-floor vents and soaks the GRAVEL that 90% of the concrete floor is made of (just a skim coat of proper concrete on top) and you get stuck with floors that look and feel dry but the carpet guys insist is sopping wet for 5 freakin months and won't lay the new carpet until it is officially dry.

Incidentally old stone houses aren't meant to be painted either, but it is very common to see them painted. Again, it contributes to damp like concrete floors do as they have no damp course so the damp from the ground can't go through the paint on the outside walls to escape so it makes bubbles in the paint inside and outside.

I've just moved from an 1870's sandstone house with recently poured concrete floors to a 1900s limestone cottage with timber floors but the termites ate the baltic so we have particleboard floors and carpet. Everyone assumed we were going to get concrete poured instead of going to the bother of replacing the joists and the planks.

But really, if the houses you are looking at are otherwise sound and the figures add up, just buy the damn house. You can always put down timber floating floors.

 

[craigb]

If there was no! plastic, water barrier then there will always be rising damp, through the floor , walls etc, can't do much about it now???

 

[gecho1]

worry

I'm with Craig B here.
If the job was done as a DIY and no moisture barrier was put in place, i would run. FAST.

You would also have to ask the question of weather the walls were tied into the slab or will the slab and walls move independantly of each other?

How thick is the slab do the footings meet the right classificaton for the site. For that matter, was it tested to begin with.

If you have any sort of moisture impregnation, it doesn't matter what floor covering you lay, it will all turn to S**t sooner rather than later.

Adrien Mamet
www.mametconstructions.com.au

 

[RumpledElf]

... footings? Old houses don't HAVE footings.

Tiles work pretty well on DIY concrete floors if you use decent glue.

Why do you think old houses usually smell musty ... says me in a 1900s house and just moved from a 1870s house

 

[gecho1]

... footings? Old houses don't HAVE footings.

Nope, but new slabs need footings, depending on soil classifications.
If you dont put footings or at very least slab thickenings

CRACK

and so will the tiles

 

[RumpledElf]

Mmmyes, seen that before in a house that was barely a month old ... well technically zero, it wasn't finished yet.

Had a massive crack right through the centre of the house (across the thinnest part, it was wide but not very deep - corner cutoff block) and we noticed because we lived in the other half of the cutoff so could go nosying in every night as they built it. It was a really really cheap build.

They just put lino over the crack in the kitchen and carpet over it in the lounge. The house had a really awful floorplan too, very badly placed doors and the 3rd bedroom wasn't big enough for a bed+cupboard, it was probably the bare minimum size for a bedroom. They had to retrospectively move the fenceline because they hadn't allowed enough room, so the fence ended up with this weird kink in it. They still sold it in about 10 minutes.