subject: Prevent Rising Damp With Professional Wall Coatings [print this page] The British climate is probably the worst for rising damp and porous damp. Youd have to think pretty hard before you came up with an inhabited country that had as insidiously wet a climate as the United Kingdom. When you combine that extreme dampness with the fact that the British building is traditionally made from porous materials that get put together on site (rather than prefabricated), you have a recipe for a never ending battle against moisture: in walls, in damp courses, coming through window seals and ceilings. The British home needs professional wall coatings to get it through each winter.
All modern British homes have a damp course, which is designed to wick water away from the walls and foundations of a building and out into the water table. Without damp proofing walls, though, the damp course wont work. A damp course can take standing water away from a home but it cannot prevent water from going straight in through the porous material of the bricks.
Once water has entered a wall, you will notice several things that should tip you off to the existence of porous or rising damp. Mould patches on curtains and in the corners of walls, heavy condensation on the windows, external render cracking or getting a lizard skin appearance - if any of these things are happening to your home, you probably need to get the pros in to put up some proper wall coatings.
Damp proofing walls with modern coatings allow existing moisture to breathe out through a wall, like sweat out of skin. The coatings will not let fresh moisture back in though. The coatings are semi permeable, which means they are totally waterproof on the outside but breathable from the inside out. So you can have your walls treated even with some moisture inside them, and with proper interior heating youll be able to dry them out.
Damp proofing walls, in Britain during winter, is as essential as wearing reflective clothes on the roads at night or having a seat belt on in your car. The British climate is such that all buildings in the country, if they have not been treated with proper wall coatings, are likely to experience some kind of moisture related damage. The damage that rising or porous damp can do to walls is in some cases enough to cause severe structural weakening and can mean that walls have to be knocked down and rebuilt. Also, the health issues that present themselves in homes suffering from damp, which can be actively dangerous for young children or older people, compound the already dangerous flu type illnesses that abound when damp is at its highest.
Damp proofing walls with proper wall coatings, is the cheapest and best way to augment the action of your damp course. Between the coursing and the coating, you should be relatively safe and free from mould, peeling paint and damp atmospheres giving you and your family a happy, comfortable and healthy home to live in through the British winter.
