Timber decay
Rot doesn't stop
where you can see it.
Dry rot is the one Scottish tenements are notorious for, and the one that costs the most when it is found late. Wet rot is more common and far more manageable. Woodworm is usually historic and usually over-treated.
Serpula lacrymans
Dry rot
Rust-red spore dust, cuboidal cracking across the grain, grey-white mycelium and strands that can travel through masonry and behind plaster to reach dry timber several rooms away. It needs a persistent water source — find and stop that first, or the treatment is decoration.
We establish the full extent by opening up, cut back to sound timber with an agreed margin, sterilise the masonry where justified, and specify the building repair that removes the moisture.
Coniophora and others
Wet rot
Darkened, soft, stringy timber confined to the wet area. Joist ends built into a damp gable, window cills, sub-floor plates, the bottom of a door frame. Contained, predictable, and resolved by stopping the water and replacing or resin-repairing the affected timber.
Anobium punctatum
Woodworm
Common furniture beetle in damp sub-floor softwood. The question is never "are there holes" — it is whether the infestation is active, which we assess by frass, bore hole condition and timber moisture content. Historic infestation in dry timber needs no chemical treatment at all.