It’s hard to overstate the importance of wood as a construction material in our homes. As well as being used for load-bearing beams, lintels, joists and rafters, timber is the predominant material for interior and exterior joinery — everything from skirting boards and kitchen units to windows, doors, fascias and claddings. So anything that threatens to weaken these key components clearly needs to be rooted out before it has potentially catastrophic consequences.
WHAT IS WET ROT?
Fungal decay, broadly known as ‘wood rot’ is one of the most common causes of damage to homes in the UK. Most people are familiar with the terms ‘wet rot‘ and ‘dry rot’, both of which are types of wood-destroying fungi that attack timber as a means of extracting nutrients and maintaining growth.
The process by which timber decays is, of course, entirely natural on the forest floor where old dead
