Sub-floor Voids, Timber Floors and Ventilation
Why do older properties often have suspended timber floors with sub-floor voids beneath? To understand this it is perhaps worth asking why all properties don’t just have solid concrete floors?
By James Hockey
.avif)
I'm not categorically sure, but my presumption is that prior to the availability of plastic DPM's, (polythene damp proof membranes) which are now placed beneath ground-bearing concrete slabs, it was not practical to lay these without them absorbing moisture from the earth beneath, resulting in a damp floor.
How therefore could those that came before us, create dry comfortable floors in an easy/practical fashion?
A suspended timber floor is just that - SUSPENDED, timber joists (beams) spanning (suspended) between walls, often also supported on a series of sleeper walls beneath, so the floor is lifted up out of the earth and therefore mostly away from moisture.
It is important that timber is maintained in a suitably dry condition. Timber is essentially dead organic material and will decay when sufficiently wet, just like when the leaves fall from the trees in Autumn, in time they decay.
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