Hello! I'm in the process of renovating a villa from the mid-1800s. It's a wooden house with a crawl space foundation. Today, I've just broken up the "extra" bathroom floor (just the toilet & sink, as the plumber is coming next week to replace the really bad cast iron pipes).
This is the only cast floor in the whole house. This room is adjacent to the chimney, and the technique used was to fill the entire void between the ground with fairly large stones, then cast directly on top. Now I've removed all the stones, so many... The soil underneath is dry, and it feels good...
So my question is, should I restore it using the same construction technique again (put the stones back and cast directly on top), or do you think I should use plastic, gravel, and create a modern slab instead? Or is it foolish to change something that has evidently worked for many years, even without heating for the last 10 years?
Best regards,
Carl
This is the only cast floor in the whole house. This room is adjacent to the chimney, and the technique used was to fill the entire void between the ground with fairly large stones, then cast directly on top. Now I've removed all the stones, so many... The soil underneath is dry, and it feels good...
So my question is, should I restore it using the same construction technique again (put the stones back and cast directly on top), or do you think I should use plastic, gravel, and create a modern slab instead? Or is it foolish to change something that has evidently worked for many years, even without heating for the last 10 years?
Best regards,
Carl
Building conservationist
· Malmö
· 256 posts
While you have it up, I would take the opportunity to install an electric coil. A little extra digging and some insulation but well worth it if you're going to lay tiles as they get very cold. Otherwise, it works as they were perfectly fine if you want to be completely satisfied, you can dig a little in the soil and lay sand about 10-15 cm before you put the stones back.