Dry Rot Newcastle

How to deal with Dry rot in the North East

Dry Rot, Wet Rot and Woodworm are the main enemies to timber in your property.

Dry Rot

Once established dry rot can travel quickly, it can carry its own moisture and nutrients to help it seek out further timbers to attack. Dry rot can travel through brick walls, behind plaster and render and up through stud partition walls to attack the next floor of a building.
Once referred to as the building cancer this fungi was feared beyond all others due to its ability to withstand treatment and return.

Modern day treatments have changed things and an attack can now be quickly and efficiently dealt with, the chances of return are limited if the treatment is carried out correctly and professionally.

Wet Rot

Wet rot is not considered to be as bad as dry rot as it is limited to areas of timber with the correct moisture content, it does not travel along dry timbers like dry rot and can be easily removed and treated.

Wet rot tends to be limited to areas of timber that are prone to constant wetting, or where the timber is in contact with damp masonry.

Identification of wet rot and dry rot

The easiest way to tell the difference between wet rot and dry rot is to compare the accompanying fungus, wet rot tends to have either no visible fungus or a thin covering of mould like fungus where as Dry Rot can have a multitude of appearances depending on where you are looking on the fungi and what the conditions are in which it has established.

The variations in dry rot go from a thin brittle vine like creeper to a dense spiders web appearance or cotton wool like appearance if the hyphae are subjected to a moist environment. The body of dry rot often looks similar to (if you can imagine) a pale pancake dusted with paprika, talcum powder and a bit of purple paint spotted in here and there. Dry rot tends to be accompanied by a strong mushroom smell and often has other tell tale signs such as orange dust - which is actually the spores of the fungi, vine like tendrils can creep along the timbers often appearing through gaps in the fabric of the building.

If you have dry rot we would recommend calling experts in, if you have wet rot you can probably handle it with decent DIY skills but Dry Rot is difficult to remove without specialist knowledge and training.

Dry Rot Resources

Approved dry rot contractors - click here

Treatments - available from

Eco-Dry
14 Terraced Factory units
Bassington Lane Trade Counter Park
Bassington Lane
Cramlington
NE23 8AD
www.eco-dry.co.uk
Tel 01670 707228