Woodworking

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Should I replace all the wooden beams? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by umulu@lemmy.world to c/woodworking@lemmy.ca

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Hi, I am new here, so I want to apologize if I mess something up. I have the following problem...

I am restoring a division in my house. It's a high ceilling area, with wooden beams supporting a hardwood floor that divides the space into a dining room (lower) and an office (upper).

My father thought the wood was in good shape, so he replaced the hardwood floor above the beams. Afterward, his plan was to apply protection to prevent woodworms and then oil for the finishing touch. But, upon closer inspection, I noticed all the wooden beams have these small holes (which I suppose are woodworms already).

Also, I knocked on the wood, and it seems hollow.

Should I replace all the wooden beams and then reapply the hardwood floor? Is there any way to recover these beams?

Thanks in advance.

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[–] snota@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

To be sure for yourself, you require two experts. 1: Get someone in to do a woodworm survey to check if there is an active infestation. There are a couple of easy checks you can do to make sure a 'specialist' doesn't try to con you. First is to get some paper and tape it to the underside of the wood, leave it a while and if little pellets appear on the paper then there are active woodworm in there. Second is a wood moisture sensor, from what I remember dry wood isn't palatable to woodworm but I could be wrong on that so do some reading. If there aren't any signs then it could have been there for a long time, depending on how old the building is. 2. You've said somewhere else that you'll be putting some stuff above it, if that concerns you then get a structural engineer to take a look at it. They can tell you if it's anything to worry about.