Floor Rot

Today at lunch break from work I cut a hole in the floor to check the full extent of the issue with the "spongy corner".  I was seriously concerned we might have to delay again and take up more of the floor.  It was really stupid to have left taking up the lino and inspecting the floor underneath to the last minute like this.  In fact delaying fundamental things like this, just so we can keep a vaguely functioning kitchen running was a mistake.  We should have moved everything out and cordoned it off for "building work only" at an early stage in the project.  We have done ourselves no favours, and just stressed ourselves out.

Fortunately the floor was not as bad as I feared it might be.  The joists traverse the full width of the room and are additionally supported by a sleeper wall in the middle.  Each joists end rests on a timber wallplate embedded into the wall, in turn sitting on a bitumen damp-proof course.  In the corner where the floor moves, the ends of the last two or three joists have rotted away to dust, as has the wallplate.  There is a decent amount of clearance between the underside of the joist and the dirt ground level, and subfloor ventilation is good, so I think this is just an age thing.

This picture shows the state of the end joist :

The two adjacent are similarly affected, though to a lesser extent.  To repair this I am going to cut back the three damaged joists to good timber, and build a new sleeper wall to support them at their new endpoints.