begins. The decayed wood takes on a dark or browner crumbly appearance, with cubical like cracking or checking, that becomes brittle and can eventually crush the wood into powder. Chemically, wood attacked by dry rot fungi is decayed by the same process as other brown rot fungi. An outbreak of dry rot within a building can be an extremely serious infestation that is hard to eradicate, requiring drastic remedies to correct. Significant decay can cause instability and cause the structure to collapse.

The term dry rot, or true dry rot, refers