I live in a 3 bedroom, semi detached house built around 1937. I was told it once had a cellar under the whole house. I know this as the house has been in my fiances family since it was built. Her grandmother lived in the house and her mother and most of her siblings were born in the house also. They all used to play down there as children.
I have been under the floor to renew the old lead water pipe and it doesnt look as if it could have a been a cellar. We have a dividing wall in the front room splitting the kitchen from the front room. Underneath the floor on the kitchen side of the wall it looks like it could have been the cellar, but under the front room it is to shallow. i have tried digging to see if i can get deeper but to no avail. The kitchen however has a huge area that is about 4 1/2 foot deep at the moment but has been back filled with old bricks. I believe this to be the cause of the cold coming into the house. in winter it is BALTIC, but also outside the rear of the building from the ground to the level of the floor boards is about 5 foot maybe 6 foot. We have the huge air bricks convenient for the year the house was built that are two course deep and one brick wide.
We have just recently had tiling done in the kitchen along the back wall and the adjoining wall to next door. Last february we had full double glazing installed all around the house, in the last 2 weeks we have noticed damp rising in the corner of the adjoining wall and the rear wall. the damp looks like this, patchy with whitse powder with white black and green fur, doesnt particularly have a smell either. We know that there must be damp as for years the house has been riddled with wood louse, but having installed some new laminate flooring, skirting boards, blocking up cracks in walls etc, and installing a tiled floor in the kitchen the wood louse are now to a minimum.
So my questions are like this:-
1. How can I stop the cold coming into the house through the floor?
Can i install thick loft insulation in between the joists of the floor boards and then install some sort of net to secure it there.
2. What is the best solution to removing the airbricks and replacing them for smaller ones, and do i need to add more of them?
3. Would repointing the outside brickwork all round the house solve the problem of the cold and dampness?