My 1970's single level brick veneer unit experienced a water pipe dripping / leaking / spraying onto an above ground hardwood timber floor bearer for an unknown period of time. The issue was recognized by a tenant who heard a slight "hissing noise" behind the brick veneer wall one day. When exposed, the water was gushing directly onto a 90x90 timber bearer which has rotted in this exact location (at brick pier joint), losing approximately half of its structural section. The entire joint was saturated. Refer attached photo. After rectification the joint has dried out. The other bearers and joists in the house are substantially dry and in sound condition. My question is how long it would take for water dripping/leaking/spraying onto this joint to result in this type of damage /rot? Days? weeks? months? 1 year? Longer?
It's very difficult to say exactly how long it would take for your floor bearer to lose half its cross-section to wood rot. Although the bearer is hardwood, different types of hardwood have different levels of resistance to fungal decay. Some species are more resistant than others. We can say it would take more than days or weeks, and at least some months, possibly up to a year. Wood rot progresses more slowly when wood is wet intermittently in the open air, as opposed to wetting from a constant source of moisture in an enclosed situation, as in your sub-floor space. Sorry we can't be more precise.
I am after the fire testing report of 75mm CLT. I can find many other product's fire testing reports but I can't seem to find one for CLT. If you have it, could you please send it through?
WoodSolutions has not commissioned fire tests specifically on CLT but it's possible some of our reports could provide relevant data, depending on which fire properties you need, eg. Critical Radiant Flux, Group Number etc. Otherwise some Australian CLT producers have produced fire data, for example XLam here: https://xlam.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/004-XLam-Fire-Design-Guide-V2-August-2023.pdf.
We would be cautious about gluing timber decking to a steel PFC channel. Timber needs to be able to respond to changes in moisture content, as are likely in external decking, by moving slightly ie. swelling on taking up moisture and shrinking on drying. Any fixing system that restrains this movement is likely to lead to splitting of the timber. Perhaps an adhesive company can advise you of a product that allows such movement to take place. Major adhesive companies provide technical support for their products and you will find contact details on company websites.
