Dry Rot

Dry rot (Serpula lacrymans) can destroy in months what the equally determined wood-boring insect larvae may take years to achieve. This is an invasive type of timber fungal decay that is often caused by a combination of dampness and insufficient ventilation, it results from such causes as defective gutters, roof faults, blocked underfloor air vents, bad pointing, and rendering, the lack of an effective damp proof course or the sealing of any space into which moisture has access. It is a primitive form of vegetable life that derives its nourishment from timber by destroying the cellulose, thereby depriving the wood of all its natural strength. Once established, it grows rapidly by pushing out fungal strands (hyphae) even through thick masonry, in its search for more timber on which to feed. Dry rot will grow sheets of a substance known as mycelium which is foul smelling. From this, fruiting bodies (sporophores) may eventually form producing millions of airborne spores which carry the infection elsewhere, not only through the building but to other buildings where conditions for germination occur now or in the future.

Dry rot is a malignant destroyer than can remove all the strength from buildings and on occasions when it has been permitted to go unchecked, has been responsible for their complete collapse. With any fungal decay, it is important to bear in mind that, like and iceberg, what a property owner has seen might only be the tip of the problem.