The fungus, named Dry Rot (Serpula lacrymans) causes huge damage to the timber of your buildings when it occurs. It can ruin the structural integrity of your property. As a homeowner, you must know the key procedures of dry rot treatment as rot is one of the most threatening reasons to damage your building.
Your home may or not be affected by dry rot or not, you must know what dry rot is, a dry rot early sign, why it occurs, and how to get rid of this!
What is dry rot?
The scientific name of dry rot is Serpula lacrymans. It is a type of wood fungus/Woodworm. It is mainly infamous for affecting damp timber. Your building can be contaminated by dry rot in two ways.
Either the spores of dry rot attack the timbers of your building, otherwise, a substance, that is already infected, can cause the contamination.
A recent dry rot survey has revealed that this fungus has turned into a major threat to properties across the United Kingdom.
All it needs to initiate the infection is an effective spore, a suitable temperature, a moderate amount of oxygen, a susceptible source of nutrition, and water. All those elements are quite available in every building.
How to identify dry rot?
You can perform dry rot identification by yourself. You will always find some dry rot early signs to be aware of. You have to recognize when the timber of your building starts to decay. Also, you must know the villain behind the affected timber decaying is none other than dry rot.
Dry rot can travel through building material and spread fast through your property. A useful set of dry rot treatments can treat those outbreaks and save your house.
Here is the list of early signs of dry rot
1. Timber cracks in cubical shape.
2. The wood darkens and shrinks notably.
3. You will see some strands growing in the mycelium.
4. If your property is located in a less humid climate, you may notice silky grey-colored skin with yellow patches on affected areas of wood.
5. There will be a soft and fleshy bracket or pancake, named fruiting bodies. It has an orange-ochre surface with wide pores.
6. You will see rust-red spore dust around the fruiting bodies.
7. A musty and damp smell will be there.
8. Fluffy and white “cotton-wool” mycelium grows amidst humid weather.
9. You may see teardrops upon the surface.
How to treat dry rot?
The best way to get rid of dry rot is to contact a suitable one among the reputed dry rot treatment companies. The experienced technicians will take care of the rest. Let me tell you exactly how they defeat this stubborn fungus and save your building.
1. Make away throughout the affected timber: The trained surveyors remove all the contaminated pieces of wood along with the infected area of wall plaster to repair dry rot. It allows them to gain direct access to renovate the wood under attack.
2. Treatment process: The first step of dry rot treatment is wiping out the sources of moisture like removing dry rot. Then the experts make the affected area dry in a rapid manner.
When the moisture comes under control, the surface becomes dry inside out. It doesn’t let the spores of dry rot germinate anymore. Some pieces of infected wood require fungicide spray or pastes and masonry biocide to prevent the property from further contamination of wood-rotting fungus.
3. Replace the wood: Removing the affected material is a significant step that you must not ignore after repairing the infected timber.
Dry rot treatment must be followed by replacing and considering engineering procedures to isolate affected pieces of wood. This can be done with the help of a wood hardener and replacing damaged wood with epoxy.
4 Under-floor ventilation: As they say, prevention is better than cure, improving the ventilation system of your building is the best way to avoid the outbreak of dry rot.
Install a mechanical ventilation solution to ensure sufficient airflow. It will resist future possibilities of attack by dry rot.
Damp2Dry Solutions, damp and timber building survey for rot and woodworm will help you carry out your damp survey & dry rot survey, a correct diagnosis is guaranteed.
Reach out to us by mail (wayne@damp2drysolutions.Co.Uk) or call us on 0740155379.
