Woodworm help!

[Rollingdownland]

We've had a builder in today who says we've got woodworm in our floorboards and stairs so I need to call someone to take a look.

Has anyone else had woodworm? It is expensive/a nightmare to fix?

Any recommendations? We are in London.

Thank you

Woodworm is easily treated, if it’s not gone too far. For a slight case you can DIY spray the affected areas and about 1m of surrounding wood. Using all the advised precautions.
if the infestation is severe you’d probably have to replace the infected wood, spraying the surrounding areas, as a precaution.

I am not an expert; currently in the process of buying a listed building with woodworm in one of the rooms. Looking at advice from FB groups such as listed buildings advice, the consensus seems to be woodworm doesn't need to be treated, but that it will stop its activity if the damp is removed. Apparently they can only be active in damp and wet conditions, so spraying won't actually solve your problem. Also, they're advising against sanding the wooden floors (which is what the woodworm people suggest) as that will only expose bore holes more.

I had exposed bore holes when my floor was sanded but it didn't matter. By the time there's a hole the bug has gone. We had to treat ours in one room. You can diy (paint/spray) the treatment on or get someone to do it. But of course if there's damp that needs sorting. Like checking the air bricks outside.

Thanks all, that's really interesting. Our floorboards in a couple of rooms are kind of turning to dust which is making me think it might be an expensive business.

Interesting re: damp as our house doesn't feel or look particularly damp. We're in a terrace and haven't had any damp issues in the ten years we've lived here. I'm obsessed by fresh air so we always have windows open, no condensation etc.

I've got a couple of companies coming next week to take a look.

Thank you so much for all replies, I'm really grateful.

Woodworm may be historic and not need treatment, active woodworm needs treatment or even replacement. I live in a Victorian and when bought forty years ago was advised to treat all the exposed rafters etc, no woodworm issues but dry rot that's a long story.

Thanks @user1471505356

I have a man coming round tomorrow and another on Thursday so hope to get to the bottom of it.

Big industry conning people into unnecessary treatment. Its likely to be historic if you have no damp. If it’s really crumbling then you may need to replace the worst affected timbers if they have been weakened too much. Be wary of anyone who wants to cover your house in chemicals.

www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/solving-damp-problems-in-your-home/timber-treatment-why-do-we-do-it.html

Killing woodworm off with spray is cheap. I like Permagard, you can do it yourself easily. What is expensive is having all structural timbers/lathe in clings and walls replaced if the worms had too much of a good feast already. We almost had to replace/sister every piece of timber in the house we've restored, and the costs was 100ks. I personally don't believe English Heritage advice to just let it dry out - in an old property, to get the wood dried to below 20% moisture content quickly and consistently is difficult if not impossible. It would require us to heat a 500 square meter house with between 3m to 13m ceiling height consistently to 20 degrees. That's obviously not going to happen, so I spray, spray, spray to get rid of these little b***

The problem with spraying is that you can only treat affected wood that is free of paint/varnish/wax, and if your lath is affected, all the plaster has to come off. Floorboards are relatively cheap to replace, it's more of a concern if the joists and beams underneath are affected. It's surprising though how much of the sap wood can be eaten up before it affects the hard, structural core, so there is always hope.

Generally if the house is warm and dry the wood worm won’t be active.
I have owned houses with active woodworm. Sometimes they use existing holes to lay there eggs and in warmer houses the worm lives in the wood for longer.
However I would never pay someone to deal with it as it’s either so bad you need a new bit of wood or you just buy some spray and treat it. Spray any up coated wood. The beetles can’t penetrate painted or varnished wood to lay the eggs (yes I had sat and watch a beetle attempt this on a painted window sill).
The chemical can be sprayed or painted on. And I always do the back of my furniture as well.
logs for the log burner are a constant source of the little blighters.

Our house is 100+ years old in a London terrace. Very well ventilated as I'm obsessed with fresh air, but we have had the odd pipe leak or do secret longer term dripping over the decade we've lived here.

I do think the woodworm is probably active as recently all our floorboards upstairs (under carpet) feel like they're rotting away - we only discovered it because we got a man in to take a look at the holes in the floorboards.

Therefore we will need new floorboards including possibly the stairs which I think are affected. This all sounds terrifyingly expensive.

What do you mean about logs @Orangesare ? We do have logs in the house for the woodburner - are you saying the woodworms come from those?

How did you get on op?
Builders have found woodworm at ours and have just had a quote of 1.5k (urg) to get upstairs and downstairs sprayed.

Yes the logs have woodworm in them and then they invade the house