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Dampness: Construction Engineering

The document discusses various causes and effects of dampness in buildings, including moisture rising from the soil, rain penetration, and condensation. It also outlines methods to prevent dampness such as providing a damp proof course, using water-resistant building materials, and ensuring proper site drainage and construction techniques. Special focus is given to damp proofing basements through the use of gravel layers and drainage systems.

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Shheryar Bismil
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59 views

Dampness: Construction Engineering

The document discusses various causes and effects of dampness in buildings, including moisture rising from the soil, rain penetration, and condensation. It also outlines methods to prevent dampness such as providing a damp proof course, using water-resistant building materials, and ensuring proper site drainage and construction techniques. Special focus is given to damp proofing basements through the use of gravel layers and drainage systems.

Uploaded by

Shheryar Bismil
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING

DAMPNESS

Engr. Waqas Anwar


Lecturer
CED, MUST
DAMPNESS

The access or penetration of moisture content


inside a building through its walls, floors, or roof is
known as DAMPNESS.
SOURCES OF DAMPNESS
• Damp rising from the soil either through the bottom
or through the ground surface, adjacent to the
walls.

• Moisture penetrating the walls as a result of rain


beating on them during continued wet weather.

• Moisture penetrating into the building through


defective construction, such as rain water pipes,
leaking roofs, leaking or choked gutters, etc.

• Damp rising from the ground either because there is


no damp proof course or because the existing
D.P.C. has been bridged by the earth outside,
being banked up to form a flower bed or an other
purpose.
ILL EFFECTS OF DAMPNESS
• It causes rots to the wooden members provided in
the building.

• It causes corrosion of the metals, used in the


construction of a building.

• It causes peeling off and removal of plaster.

• It causes paints to get blistered and bleached and


the surface thus gets disfigured.

• It causes floors of the building to remain ugly, since


they cannot be cleaned well.
ILL EFFECTS OF DAMPNESS

• Carpets if used on the floors of a damped building,


gets destroyed earlier.
• All electric installations get destroyed.
• It reduces the life of the structure as a whole.
• When dampness rises into brickwork, certain salts
dissolved in it also rise with it and appear in the form
of white deposit on the wall surface due to which
brickwork disintegrates and falls to powder.
• It causes unhygienic conditions for the occupants of
the building and affects adversely their health.
• Dampness produces unpleasant smell, foul air,
mildew fungus, which makes it impossible to store
supplies of household goods.
CAUSES OF DAMPNESS
• RAIN PENETRATION
Properly constructed walls offer considerable
resistance to rain penetration but its rapid
penetration takes place through the joints and
porous bricks or stones. Rain penetration is also
possible through the roof components, cracks, and
joints b/w the walls and the roof.

• LEVEL OF THE SITE


Structures built on a higher ground can be drained
off easily and hence they are less liable to
dampness. But low lying areas cannot be easily
drained off and thus causes dampness in the
structure.
CAUSES OF DAMPNESS
• DRAINABILITY OF THE SITE
Gravel and sandy soil allow water to pass
through easily whereas clayey soils retain
moisture and also causes dampness due to
capillary rise.

• CLIMATIC CONDITIONS
Dampness is also caused due to the
condensation of moisture present in the
atmosphere under very cold climate.
Condensation of the atmospheric moisture can
be identified by the drops of moisture present on
the ceilings, walls, floors etc.
CAUSES OF DAMPNESS (CONTINUED)

• DEFECTIVE ORIENTATION
The building having its walls subjected to direct showers of rain
or getting less direct sun rays, due to defective orientation is
liable to dampness.
• MOISTURE ENTRAPPED DURING CONSTRUCTION
Walls while being constructed are in wet conditions. These
may persist moisture for a long period after the construction is
over due to the use of salty or alkaline water, which causes
dampness in the building.

• DEFECTIVE MATERIALS
Dampness is also caused due to soakage of moisture by the
defective materials like porous bricks, soft stones, etc.
especially when they are used in external walls.

• DEFECTIVE CONSTRUCTION
In case, there is any leakage in the sewers, down water pipes,
kitchens, bathrooms, etc., it will be causing dampness in the
building.
PREVENTION OF DAMPNESS

PRECAUTIONS
• Select a sit to make sure that the first point at which
water is struck in a pit is at least 10ft below the surface
of the ground even in the wet season.

• Make the ground surface surrounding the building


slope away from the house so that rain water drains
away, before it has time to collect.

• If the building is on a hill side, make sure that the land


above the house is adequately drained around the
building and not through it
METHODS
THE FOLLOWING ARE THE METHODS THAT CAN BE ADAPTED FOR
THE PREVENTION OF DAMPNESS IN THE BUILDINGS:

(1) BY SURFACE TREATMENT

The surface treatment consists in filling or blinding the


pores of the material exposed to moisture by painting a
water-repellent material over the surface.

Some of the materials employed are:

Sodium or potassium silicate, aluminium or zinc sulphates,


barium hydroxide and magnesium sulphate in alternate
applications, soft soap and alum also in alternate
applications, lime and linseed oil, coal-tar, bitumen,
waxes and fats, shellacs, resins and gums etc.
(2) BY INTEGRAL TREATMENT

• The integral treatment consists in adding certain


components to the concrete or mortar during the
process of mixing, to make it more dense by filling the
pores through chemical action or mechanical effect.

• For example, compounds like chalk, talc, fuller’s earth


etc. act mechanically and compounds like alkaline
silicates, aluminium or zinc sulphates, calcium, aluminium
or ammonium chlorides, iron fillings etc. act chemically.

• It 5% soap is added in the water to be used for preparing


the mortar, the pores get clogged and coating of water
repellent substance stick to the wall surface which makes
it sufficiently damp proof.
(3) BY SPECIAL CONSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUES

• By constructing the external walls of sufficient thickness.

• By using the bricks of good quality for constructing the


external walls.

• By building the walls in rich cement mortar.

• By providing string courses and cornices.

• By fixing down water pipes sufficiently so that water may


not leak through the junction of walls and roof.

• By constructing hollow brick walls. ( these walls are built,


usually with a thick skin of 9in inside, the air space of about
2in between and the outer skin of 4 ½ in. outside. The two
skins are boned together by means of galvanized iron wall
ties).
(4) BY PROVIDING A DAMP PROOF COURSE

The continuous layer of an impervious material,


which is provided in between the source of
dampness and part of the structure is called a
Damp Proof Course.
BY PROVIDING A DAMP PROOF COURSE
Damp proof course is of two types:

(1) HORIZONTAL DPC

o It is provided in the walls at plinth level in the form of 1 ½ in.


thick layer of 1:2:4 cement concrete covered with two coat
of hot bitumen or a polythene sheet or metal sheets of lead,
copper or aluminum.

o It is also provided in the roofs in the form of two coats of hot


bitumen, bitumen felt, mastic asphalt or sheets of polythene,
lead, copper, or aluminum over the R.C.C. slab.

o Horizontal D.P.C. is also provided in floors if the sub-soil water


table is high and moisture is likely to rise in the floors by
seepage, added by the capillary action of the soil.
BY PROVIDING A DAMP PROOF COURSE

(2) VERTICAL DPC

• Vertical D.P.C. is mostly provided in the external


walls in the form of ¾ in. thick 1:3 cement sand
plaster, coated with two washings of hot
bitumen.

• It is also provided to prevent the dampness into


the walls of the basements from the adjacent
soils.
D.P.C. IN BASEMENTS (CONTINUED)

• As basements are built below ground level, these


are most likely to be attacked by dampness from
the soil below as well as from outside the walls.

• A typical basement section showing the damp


proof courses.

• If the head of the water below the level of the floor


is high, a layer of gravel 4 ½ in. thick, is laid under
the bottom of concrete of floor.

• Also, gravel is filed between the walls of the


basement and adjacent soil.
D.P.C. IN BASEMENTS

• The gravel under the floor collects the seepage water and
delivers it to the gravel outside the external walls, through the
communicating pipes, buried horizontally.

• Drain pipes or footing drains are laid around the footing


buried inside the gravel.

• These footing drains lead the seepage water to a natural


drain, if nearby, or to a dry well.

• A dry well is a pit excavated in permeable soil or one having


its bottom in such soil and filled with gravel or crushed rock.

• If permeable soil is not present nearby, the water is pumped


out of dry wells by hand pumps or other techniques.

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