Moisture beneath suspended timber floors

Abstract

Suspended timber floors are probably the most common form of construction for ground floors in existing British housing, although they exist in only a small proportion of newly built houses. If moisture builds up in the crawl space beneath the floor, wet or dry rot may begin, leading to structural damage to the floor and foul smells entering the living areas. The crawl space is ventilated by air bricks to prevent this happening, but this is often inadequate, and many houses suffer from damp conditions in the crawl space which are potentially harmful. These can be alleviated by increasing the ventilation, but the increased flow of cool outside air beneath the floor leads to higher heat losses in winter. Examines the relationship between crawl space ventilation rate and relative humidity.

Citation

Harris, D.J. (1995), "Moisture beneath suspended timber floors", Structural Survey, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 11-15. https://doi.org/10.1108/02630809510147581