Damp Proofing Tips For Dummies
We’ve all experienced that nasty feeling when you walk into your lounge after some heavy rain just to find your expensive suede sofa covered in water!
As with most things in life, prevention is better than cure, therefore it is important to properly damp proof your home effectively from the start. Once water or dampness manages to slip in it is a very difficult and expensive thing to put a stop to. Never be satisfied with a contractor without the right qualifications – you might just end up with a house that is just about as waterproof as a spider web!
There are 3 essential areas where you should take special care to correctly damp proof from the word “foundation”!
Think about the order in which a new home will be built. Firstly, you will begin with a floor slab which forms the cornerstone of your home. A Damp Proof Course or DPC is a plastic sheet that is positioned between the floor slab and the compacted sand below and that doesn’t permit water to pass through from one point to another. If this sheet is not laid correctly you will quickly find that the bottom part of your walls will become damp and this might lead to structural damage.
After the slab is laid, it’s time to construct your outside walls. You’ll now have to damp proof at the base of these walls level to the floor slab. This will once again be done with a DPC sheet as explained above and to make sure that the damp proofing is most effective, the two sheets should be connected to prevent any space for moisture content or damp to sneak in.
The one area that many people ignore is the window sills along with the tops and sides of all windows and external door frames. The easiest way to do this is with silicon, but be warned that this is not a suggested approach as it does not last for an extended time. If an incorrect technique is used you will be the lucky winner of never-ending maintenance problems!
The inside of your house can also fall prey to moisture issues. Should you have wooden floors moisture or water can quite quickly lead to rotten floor surfaces. As wooden floors usually are quite expensive, this ought to be avoided as far as possible. Moisture inside the house can be due to a leak from a gutter or roof or even day-to-day plumbing problems! It is crucial to damp proof your floors by installing a vapour barrier.
Also take the time to properly seal your roof tiles and fix or replace broken tiles as quickly as possible. The longer an issue is ignored, the more significant your resulting destruction will be! While you are on the roof, check to see that the balcony has appropriate drainage and will not be turned into a swimming pool after a little bit of heavy rain. All gutters must also be regularly inspected and cleaned.
Rather take precautionary measures and damp proof the house adequately – this will end up saving you a small fortune and headache pills!
This entry was posted on Sunday, January 30th, 2011 at 4:30 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.