After removing the wall that separates the lounge from the kitchen, the structural engineer drew my attention to a piece of steel under the carpet “I didn’t put that there!” he asserted.
Now, we were already a little suspicious about the floor, once we started removing the plaster from the walls Tim accidentally put his knee through the floor at one point. Was that just an unlucky piece of wood or a more sinister systemic problem. Let’s find out together shall we?
We had an expert come in (from Bear Bottom inspections, tee hee) to inspect the floors and tell us what is going on. Turns out that the floorboards are riddled with borer.
Apparently the borer beetles lay their eggs in the wood while it’s in the timber yard and then some time after it’s installed the larvae hatch and eat their way out of the wood. Pretty much all the floor boards are suspect. The good thing is that the insects themselves are long gone.
You can really see how much damage they do to the wood if you cut it, the image below shows a piece of flooring that has been cut, the bit that’s been eaten by borer (left) may as well be cardboard, you can see a little sliver of solid wood on the right hand side.
Am I a little annoyed at the previous owners from not selling anything? Yes, I am, but it’s an excuse to re-do the floors properly with more modern flooring, so I am not too upset.
See below for the progressive discovery of borer in the bedroom as well, from the glossy sales photo through to bare floor through to uh oh.
Note that some floor boards are painted black? Apparently back in the olden days you would have a rug in the centre of the room and then paint the bit around the outside of the rug.