Sagging floor

Yakuza

Two threads in the same day - I hope I'm not usurping your time here

I have a bookshelf in an alcove in one of my downstairs rooms, and in the last while I've noticed a tilt in the shelf, about 5 degrees from horizontal. The weight of the books is causing the floor to sag (the boards are the original - the guts of 70 years old I'd say. I've a bulder friend coming to take a look at it, to see what needs to be replaced.

It's a suspended floor - would it be possible / advisable to put a concrete plinth in the alcove, to take the weight of the bookshelf?

As a general point, is it feasilble to replace the entire floor with concrete (sealing, insulating and putting a dpc / radon barrier in)?

Thanks again for your time.

Carlow52

Lets know what the builder says first on the specific issue

if the alcove is block wall both sides 2 pieces of angle iron bolted to wall will do the job

on the general issue yes it is possible to redo the floor, just make sure the underfloor ventilation is not compromised.

If u have an outside window u could have the concrete pumped in

Yakuza

Update: We took up a few boards in the alcove this morning:
The wood on the wall that the joists sit on (the wall plate?) is basically rotten - it's over 60 years old and there is damp coming up from the bricks, with no damp-proofing between the plate and the brickwork (on the party wall). He stuck his head in the and saw the wood on tassel wall was heading the same way.

After a brief chat, it boiled down to a couple of options:
1) Running repairs on where it's bad now.
2) Replace the lot with concrete.

I'd be inclined to replace the lot at the moment, as I'm sure to have the same problem elsewhere (and I've started to notice a bit of sponginess in a few other spots around the ground floor). We're looking at approx 7.5m * 3.5m for the two rooms and 4.5m * 1.8m for the hall (the kitchen floor was fully replaced with concrete and tiles a few years ago when we extended it). The depth would be about 2 blocks (not sure how high that is).

I'll be getting a quote for that in the next few days, any ideas what it's likely to come in with (just the filling in the above area with concrete, not putting a floor down on top of it). Would it be 4 figures, 5 figures?

Cheers!

denisor

Have you found the source of the dampness?

Yakuza

It's basically coming up through the bricks in the party wall. We're in a low-lying area and when it rains heavily, my front garden is like a swimming pool. I'm guessing that there is water / dampness seeping up and under.

I also noticed that whatever gobsh1te paved my neighbour's driveway, they brought the level of the bricks in the drive up to the airbrick under his front window, so if there is any rain at all, the void under his house gets a direct influx of water, so I'd say that that's not helping matters either.