The Diagnosis
WHY SHOULD MOISTURE BE TREATED?
WHY SHOULD MOISTURE PROBLEMS BE TREATED?
PRESERVING YOUR PROPERTY
Damp causes rapid deterioration of the structures of buildings.
A healthier house has much more value when reselling.
STOPPING REPEATED REPAIR AND RENOVATION WORKS
Rising damp damages wall paper, base-coat and top-coat plasters, paintwork, partition walls, double walls, plinths and ceilings. All this forces repeated renovation and repair work to be carried out.
PROTECTING YOUR HEALTH
Humidity leads to the development of moulds and fungi, which can cause allergies and many respiratory diseases.
SAVING ENERGY
The thermal resistance of a damp wall is very low. What is more, moist air is very difficult to warm up.
ELIMINATING PARASITES
Humidity is the main cause of the presence of insects such as termites, beetles and many others.
How to treat them
1 . DEFINITION
THERE ARE THREE TYPES OF MOISTURE :
- Condensation
- Infiltrations
- Rising damp
WHAT IS RISING DAMP ?
Mistakes that are frequently made in diagnosing the problem, due to mix-ups or to the type of mixture used, give rise to wrong choices that lead to the need for renovation work.
It is often misdiagnosed by confusion and confusion, the recommendation is erroneous where work repeatedly.
Let us take as an example a traditional old building, which is likely to have no wall cavities.
Rising damp is characterised by the presence under the building of cracks in the ground, faults and springs. Due to friction, the water moving in the fault lines produces a slight electric potential varying between 50 and 500 millivolts.
The earth’s magnetic field is generated by the earth’s core and expands towards infinity (∞): when passing through the fault lines, it undergoes disturbances caused by the electric potential and is transformed into an electromagnetic field (EM field).
These disturbances can be identified and quantified with the help of a geomagnetometer (in units of measurement of nanotesla).
Electromagnetic fields carry molecules of water that, passing through the capillaries of the ground, saturate with the salts contained in them and penetrate into the capillaries of the materials (walls and slabs).
2 . DIAGNOSIS
A . ANALYSIS OF MINERAL SALTS
Salts are by nature nitrate or sulphate salts or both, depending on the nature of the ground (detectable by means of MERCK salt detection kits.
N.B.: If dampness is caused by an infiltration of rain water, which is demineralised, the salt detection kits will enable a different diagnosis to be reached.
Reading of the moisture limit is easily understandable and is important for providing a more precise diagnosis.
B .READING THE MOISTURE LIMIT
NORMAL LIMIT : NO PROBLEM OF RISING DAMP
On looking at a wall, it consists originally of the same material from A to B, and is therefore uniform.
Its coefficient of porosity is the same throughout, from A to B. If the wall is affected by permanent or occasional retention of water (groundwater or infiltration of rainwater respectively), the wall will “absorb” the water as if it were a wick or blotting paper, and the line of moisture will be regular and its height will never exceed 80 cm (due to a matter of atmospheric pressure).
For this type of damp the French regulations (D.T.U. 14) on the subject of waterproofing this must be provided for the full height on perimeter walls and for a height of one metre on partition walls, that is to say 20 cm above the moisture limit, that never exceeds 80 cm. These 20 cm provide a sufficient guarantee.
IRREGULAR LIMIT : THERE IS A RISING DAMP PROBLEM
Visible due to the wave-like shape and to the salts rising to the surface. The wave shows the fault line underneath the site (mirror effect).
1. The friction is as weak as the electric potential is.
2&3. The friction is as strong as the electric potential is.
C . ELECTRIC POTENTIAL
Caused by the friction of water inside the fracture lines, electric potential is an index of rising damp when it reaches values that vary between 50 and 500 millivolts.
Measurement is carried out with the help of a voltmeter able to measure millivolts.
N.B.: The changes to the magnetic field vary continuously since the passing of the water and its friction are not constant, and the electric potential therefore undergoes the same changes depending on the seasons, the amount of rainfall, the melting of snow, and so on.
TO SUM UP :
To confirm or exclude the presence of rising damp, the diagnosis must take three fundamental requisites into account :
1. Analysis of the salts contained in the materials (nitrates, sulphates)
2. Reading of the moisture limit and measurement of the moisture content of the materials
3. Measurement of the electric potential in millivolts.
In these conditions the wall becomes a small battery ;
These 3 aspects (+, S, E) = Existential triptych of RISING DAMP
EXPLANATION OF AN EXISTENTIAL TRIPTYCH
A human being has his own triptych and in order to live needs :
- To feed
- To drink
- To breathe
Failure to meet even only one of these needs would make it impossible to survive.
If one leg of a tripod is eliminated, it will collapse. A triptych consists of three indispensable conditions.
The same applies to rising damp. To eliminate it, steps have to be taken on one of these aspects.
1. Mineral salts are solids and cannot evaporate. They will remain inactive when the wall is completely dry.
2. The water inside the wall is the cause of the damp. The aim is therefore to make the wall dry out.
3. The electric potential is the real cause of the problem of capillary action of water due to the electromagnetic field (EM field).
As a consequence, in order to stop rising damp all that can be done is to take steps on the electric potential by reversing the polarity.
The StopRise® is a polarity reversing device that halts rising damp completely just like electro-osmosis, with the difference that StopRise® functions within a radius rather than in a linear fashion on a wall, thus enabling the walls, slabs and partitions of the site affected by the problem to be dried out.
3 . TREATMENT
IMPORTANT COMMENT
In order to deal with the problem of rising damp once and for all, it is well to avoid any patching that would simply worsen the situation, as the patches would cover the damage and hamper evaporation of the water. Then, since water is lazy, it would go looking for other areas from which to evaporate (the deterioration will usually appear just above the patched areas).
To conclude, doing this the problem of rising damp will not be solved but simply moved from one place to another.
THE EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS FOR DEALING WITH RISING DAMP ONCE AND FOR ALL :
- Resin injections : Create a waterproof barrier by injecting resin into a row of points at distances of 12- 15 cm from one another at the bottom of the wall.
- Passive or active electro-osmosis : Fit a copper wire connected to electrodes into the load-bearing wall, connecting this system in turn to a battery.
With injections and electro-osmosis it is only possible to act on load-bearing walls. It is not possible to make any holes or small drainage canals (for the copper wire) in a slab (it is forbidden to make holes in a slab) or in partitions (they are hollow and absorb moisture from the slab as a result of contact).
These two techniques lead to PARTIAL drying!
- Polarity-reversing device:
StopRise® acts over a radius and tackles the whole building (walls, slabs, partitions).
StopRise® reverses the electric potential that is the cause of the rising damp.
StopRise® completely stops the rising damp, facilitating drying of the walls and of the ground over the whole surface area of the building.
StopRise® solves the problem ONCE AND FOR ALL.
TOTAL drying out is achieved!
