Wood worm holes again !

[pwdrive]

I had a similar story with the joists in my front room. They had been severely eaten away, and as a result, bits of the floor had sunk. In once place, where there was once a 2 by 4 resting on the brick wall, there was now a 2 by 2!

I was impressed with how solid the floor felt, despite the attack. Looking closely at the old joists after I'd replaced them, you could clearly see the difference between sapwood and heartwood, and some informal testing showed that the loss of sapwood made surprisingly little difference to the strength of the timber. It was really quite impressive.

I need to repeat the exercise in the back lounge (above the cellar) - there is a lot of historic damage, but no real loss of strength. I have 2 or 3 options on the table, but there's no rush - it's not going anywhere...

Yes, woodworm has to be quite bad to cause structural failure, same with rot, but I take no chances with rot, I just renew the timber, I think most folks that use the off the shelf stuff probably skimp on its application given the price that it is, all our old chair legs are done in it as these have been in less than ideal storage since we last moved, legs in four containers, fill containers up with stuff and leave for a few hours to stand, brushing all the way up the legs when possible, then let dry, light rub with light oak stain all over the legs, wipe off even  then wax up.

Those little critters usually enter via the end grain, usually the early wood and not the late wood, just as a note, the early wood (sometimes called spring wood) is softer than the late wood (sometimes called summer wood), the early wood is the lighter colour of the two, you can do a thumbnail test to prove the point, two growth rings per year. The individual plywood veneers (the cores) can contain early wood or late wood or both, it depends on the trees growth rate and when it was harvested and the thickness of the veneers etc.

So for good treatment using off the shelf stuff apply as much as you can whatever the cost of fluid.

Lawrence.