Indy Total Construction

Every home has a multitude of pipes in it; without them there could be no hot or cold water system, no sewage disposal and no gas supply, but the fact remains that pipework look unsightly if exposed to view. Older houses suffer in this respect far more than modern ones.

Builders used to leave ugly pipes on display all over the place, especially in kitchens and bathrooms. In many older homes, the supply pipes that take water to the bath, basins, sinks and WCs are there for all to see, and there’ll often be waste and soil pipes fully exposed en route from upstairs rooms to the drains.

The demands of modern plumbing in a home can make this problem still more aggravating. It’s amazing, for example, just how much pipework is needed to give even a small home central heating. Just a single pipe running through a room can ruin its appearance.

However, it’s possible to take full advantage of modern plumbing equipment without having an array of ugly, different-sized pipes on view throughout your home, providing you put a little forethought into what you are doing.

Installing and concealing new pipes If you’re installing new pipe runs, you’ll probably find that horizontal ones don’t pose as many problems as vertical ones. Provided you don’t have a solid floor, pipes can usually be run under the floorboards. If, on the other hand. you’re laying a new concrete floor, you could make channels in it to accept the new pipes. You will need to embed some timber battens or, better still, some scaffolding poles in the new floor until it is almost dry.

When they are removed, the pipes can be laid in the channels they have formed. The pipes should then be covered with mortar, ready for the final floorcovering to be laid. It is important in laying such channels to ensure the continuity of the damp-proof membrane in the floor.

Vertical pipes can be more of a headache, and you should aim to conceal these in an understairs cupboard, if you can, or to run them up through the hall. Whatever you do, you’ll want to keep the pipes out of the living room if at all possible.

However, if this proves difficult, a good position for them is at the side of the window: they won’t be immediately visible and you can easily hide them behind ceiling-to-floor curtains extending beyond the sides of the window opening.

The pipes are likely to protrude from the wall by as much as 25mm (1 in) or so, which means the curtains will have to be carefully put up to allow them to operate in front of the pipes. The best solution is to fix a horizontal batten of say, 50x25mm (2×1 in) timber to the wall at ceiling height above the window and each side of the pipes and then screw the track to that. That way the curtains will clear the pipes and hide them from view. Alternatively, you could use a curtain pole, which projects that much further from the wall than the track.

Curtains can conveniently be used elsewhere to conceal pipes. If you’ve had to run vertical pipes through the hall, it’s probably best to keep them to one side of the front door where they are not obvious. Ceiling-tofloor curtains could be used to cover the pipes, as well as to provide extra draught- proofing, comfort and privacy — especially if you have a completely glazed front door.

Another place to site the vertical pipes in the living room is in a group down the side of the chimney breast furthest away from the door. This is one of the last places in the room likely to be noticed by anyone entering it.

Once the pipes reach the first floor concealing them is not so critical, as they may pass within fitted wardrobes; in any case not so many people will be seeing them. You may also be able to keep many of them out of view by running them through the airing cupboard. Even so, a lot of pipes are going to be on view in parts of your home where they’ll look ugly and out of place, and boxing them in is one of the best ways of concealing them.

A solid floor often consists of concrete rag that has been laid on top of a layer of hardcore in the ground. This is then covered by a damp-proof membrane, which may in turn be protected by a thin layer of mortar called a screed which is leveled out arid topped by the flooring. But not all solid floors are laid directly on top of the ground.

You may find solid floors in flats and houses, at first floor level and above, as an alternative to framed floors which are supported by beams and structural walls and are usually floorboards mounted on joists.

How are solid floors constructed? You’ll only find the concrete floor surface laid directly on the soil in the oldest houses. And even then you’re more likely to find a heavy concrete slab beneath the surface flooring. If your floor is old, it will probably consist of hardcore with up to 150mm (6in) of concrete on top.

Surface finish, such as a 25mm (1 in) terrazzo screed, quarry tiles, floorboards on slim joists or wooden block flooring like parquet. Was then laid on top.

With this older style of construction little consideration was given to rising damp. Parquet blocks were sometimes bedded in bitumen, but only if the surface of the floor came below soil level would any systematic damp-proofing be used. In that eventuality, the structural slab was covered with asphalt, which was in turn covered with a further 75mm (3in) of concrete.

The design of a modern solid floor slabs allows for a much more rigorous approach to damp proofing. A 100mm (4in) structural slab is laid over a damp-proof membrane that protects the walls as well in order to provide complete protection. On top of the structural slab may come a mortar screed suitable for carpet or vinyl laying or a direct surface finish? Damp proofing is vital because although well-laid concrete. Basically water proof, it still may allow damaging water vapor to pass through without the membrane.

Cracks are the most common fault in solid floors – and are usually due to drying shrinkage or thermal movement. But, provided the cracks are no wider than 6mm (I/4in), you can repair them quite easily yourself. Minor surface damage such as roughness and unevenness is also simply repaired.

If, however: the cracks are wider than 6rnm (‘/4in), that means that something more serious is wrong with your floor – probably a crack going all the way through the slab as well as the screening – so you should call in a builder or surveyor to advise you. A still more worrying problem, especially in a direct-to-earth floor, is rising damp. If a damp-proof membrane already exists and there is still evidence of damp, the damp is likely to be localized: the result of a small break in the membrane.

This may show up only after the old porous floor surface has been replaced with some more modern flooring. The original surface would have let damp through, so avoiding damage, but as the modern ones don’t let water vapor evaporate. It tends to build up underneath and attack both the adhesive and the flooring.

So. If you are going to fit new flooring on an old solid floor, first of all check that it’s damp proof (see Ready Reference). If you do have damp. Then you can put up with your existing flooring: replace it with a new flooring of the same

All you do is slightly widen the crack by using a club hammer and cold chisel, going down to a depth of 12mm (1/2in), undercutting the surrounding floor a little. This is very important as it allows the mortar to get a much better grip on the surface than it would if you were attempting to fill a crack with smooth, feathered edges.

Clean out any dust or debris before brushing on a coat of PVA adhesive, smoothing in the mortar with a small trowel and finishing it off level with the surrounding floor. The chances are that the crack will open up again at some stage. Especially if the floor on one side of it has pushed either up above or down below the rest. The only really permanent solution is to have the floor completely replaced before you lay your new floor surface.

Inserting a damp-proof membrane the simplest way to do this is to remove the skirting boards and strip off the plaster on the walls to a point 50mm (2in) above the wall’s damp-proof course. If at this stage you find your walls don’t have a damp-proof course. It is advisable to get one put in before going any further.

Various forms of damp-proof membrane are used, ranging from thick polythene (often known as ’1000 – gauge’ or ‘sheet 1000′), PVC, butyl rubber or polyisobutylene for large scale work (where the sheets are loose laid or bonded to the structural slab with water-resistant adhesive), to bitumen emulsion for smaller scale jobs.

These sealants are sprayed or painted on the slab in two coats. With the second one being brushed at right angles to the first to prevent thin spots and pin holes where damp could come through. To protect your room completely against rising damp you should link the membrane into the damp-proof course.

This is easy if the dip is above the floor, but it is possible that it’ll be below the level of your floor. If that’s the case then you will have to dig a small channel round the floor so you can gain access – Then all you do is paint bitumen. Either up or down the wall or fit the poly-sheets with more water resistant aches.

Some solid floors are not laid direct. Some of them are cast in situ around reinforcing steel and some are precast concrete floorboards that are locked together_ others, which are made of hollow terracotta blocks that are linked together with Meta Rods and that have the gaps filled in with concrete, are also technically known as solid floors.

You can create a damp-proof membrane by using two coats of bitumen emulsion and applying them over the concrete slab and the exposed brickwork. The second coat should be brushed on at right angles to the first.

You may find that a problem floor is simply due to one or two joists having become twisted and this can be cured by toe-nailing tight fitting wooden struts between them. However, if the wood is being eaten away by insects or rot, you will have no option but to replace every affected piece.

Lever up a sufficient number of floorboards to get at the affected joists, using a claw-headed hammer with a wooden batten to help leverage. Pull out all the nails and stack the boards so that you can replace them in the same order.

If only a small section of a joist is damaged, the affected area can easily be sawn out and replaced. However, for safety, make sure that the cuts are at least 24in beyond the damage.

Removal of a complete joist will mean levering it from its wall plates at each end, and also any intermediate wall plates. If the ends are set in sockets in the wall, cut through the joist just short of the wall and pull the stubs out. Brick up the sockets, cementing metal hangers into the top joints.

If only a section of joist has been removed, cut a new piece of joist to the same size plus extra wood so that it will overlap the ends by at least 18in. Bolt this to the old joist with two carriage bolts at each end.

If a complete joist is to be fitted, trim back its ends to a taper so that there is no chance of it touching the external walls. Toe-nail the joist to its wall-plates.

If the wall plates themselves are affected, replace them at the same time, simply laying them on top of the sleeper walls. Make sure you prevent contact with the masonry by laying a strip of flexible flashing along the wall first. It is recommended that pressure treated lumber be used for replacement sections.

Something to watch out for are pipe and cable runs below the floor. Pipes are usually set in shallow-cut notches in the tops of the joists and cables pass through holes drilled in them.

Always remove the fuse, or flip the circuit breaker, controlling any underfloor electrical circuit before work begins. Cut the cable out of the old joist by making two saw cuts down to the hole. Make similar cuts in the new joist and glue the offcut back for added protection. Alternatively, disconnect the cable from the nearest fitting and thread it through the holes.