Help!
We recently installed a Damp Proof Course (DPC) on a terraced house in Liverpool. However, as senior surveyor Roy Higginson explained it was no ordinary house. “We realised the property was unique when people stopped outside to take photographs,” he said. “But it was when the first bus full of tourists arrived the penny finally dropped. We were actually working on the former childhood home of John Lennon, what a great honour.”
A day in the life (of a surveyor)
Rising damp is unhealthy, unsightly and can lead to timber decay and heat loss. It carries with it hygroscopic ground salts such as chlorides and nitrates, which can absorb moisture from the atmosphere, leading to damp in walls in conditions of high relative humidity.
Damp proofing protects the process to ensure moisture cannot pass through the walls of a building to the interior by placing a barrier in walls which prevents rising damp, with other methods available to prevent penetrating damp problems prevalent in modern homes.
Roy adds: “We diagnosed rising damp in the property and installed a remedial damp proof course using our DryWall Silane Diffusion system, the very latest in damp proofing technology. This involves the introduction into the wall of a concentrated thixotropic silane/siloxane ‘cream’ to form a barrier against rising damp. As the cream slowly diffuses, it also releases a silane vapour which reacts with the silica in the masonry to form a water repellent resin.
No liquid is involved so the wall is quicker to dry out and it is not injected under pressure which means that there are no problems with party walls.”
It system is environmentally friendly and financially efficient and because damp walls lose heat a lot quicker than dry walls, it should also save both money and energy.
