Quarry floor tiles in kitchen

[lexie01]

Hi, I live in an Edwardian semi which still has it's original quarry floor tiles in the kitchen/breakfast area, utility and downstairs toilet. We suspect that the tiles are laid directly onto ash and as such there is no damp proof course (or even proper foundations). We have had a quote for taking up the tiles, laying foundations and damp proof membrane and relaying the tiles but I am concerned about damaging the existing tiles.

I get lots of conflicting information. Some say leave them as they are as the slight unevenness adds to the character and quite a few will get broken as they are lifted. Others, primarily builders, all suggest I take them up and relay for better insulation etc. I am in a complete muddle. Has anyone else gone through this process. Did you notice any significant gains by laying the correct insulation under the tiles? Any help/suggestions would be greatly received

I have the same.I have been advised never to touch them[as i also wanted to dig up and put underfloor heating].But you can put engineered wood etc. over them.Personally i think they add real character to my kitchen and i think they can be cleaned up and restored and regrouted[ but i don't like things that look too perfect!].

Do you have a problem with damp? We have just bought a 50s semi with quarry tiles and are planning to leave them as they are for now (wondering if they should be sealed or something though?).

My parents' house has quarry tiles from god knows when (it's a listed building but tiles are presumably relatively recent) and they do tend to sweat a bit in summer (ours don't seem to). They also have terrible problems with damp but then it's a sandstone house in the rainy NW.

Do you have a damp proof course under your walls?

If you have a building which is designed to 'breath' through the floor and walls as most old buildings did, and you then block off the floor with a dpm, you may get all the water going up through the walls instead, so you end up with damp around the bottom of the walls. On the other hand, Edwardian seems a bit late to be building without a dpc in the walls.

Our house has a room which used to have bricks laid directly onto the ground, and then had that concreted over because the previous owners found it was damp (they never heated it or ventilated it as far as we could see, so the whole place was damp). The result was exactly that the damp went up the walls instead. They then put concrete on the walls (yes, classy), with the result that we've ended up with a bizarre damp concrete effect, and all the walls and floor need re-doing, at vast expense.

Why not see if the SPAB have any advice?

www.spab.org.uk/advice/technical-qas/

Thanks everyone - sorry for not replying sooner. We don't appear to have a problem with damp (thankfully) but the kitchen is extremely cold in the winter (not helped by leaky windows etc) and the tiles are freezing. Hence the thought about fitting the correct insulation under the tiles with underfloor heating as well.

Reading some of your comments though I may end up creating problems as much as fixing them. In fact I seem to be quite lucky that they are fairly level, in good condition and are not damp. I will have a look at the SPAB web site (thanks GrendelsMum) for further info but given the replies I think I may well just leave them in situ and get them cleaned. What is the phrase about 'if it isn't broken......'

How about putting some underfloor heating + tiles over the top of them if it's heating that's an issue?