How to Waterproof your walls against Dampness?

Walls play an important role in the aesthetics of your home. A beautiful wall makes us comfortable and creates positive energy inside your house.

As a homeowner, you definitely do not want any damage to a wall due to dampness or water seepage. In this guide, we will talk about the existing wall that has already been constructed and also talk about the new construction of a wall.

(If you are interested in only new construction, skip the initial part of the article and skip below. )

In this article we will answer below major questions which you may have in mind:

How to protect your wall from Dampness, Mold, Mildew & Germs?

How to increase the longevity of your wall's health?

Do we really need an expert to waterproof your walls?

What if I ignore wall waterproofing?

Water breaches your wall from two major sources, first is rain, and the second is soil moisture. The rainwater seeps from the outer wall and penetrates your inner walls (Read here about protection against rain). While soil moisture travels due to capillary action in your wall and creates dampness. Also, rising water brings salt along with it, and this result in effervescence.

Effervescence on the wall

Let's discuss 5 ways to waterproof your walls:

1. Seal the cracks:

• The Cracks start to develop with time and if left unattended, do damage to the walls. Find all the cracks in your wall and seal them with sealing pastes. There are many options available in the market such as Dr. Fixit's Crack-X-Paste or Asian Paint's CrackSeal.

• Application of these pastes is easy and can be done by yourself. Make sure to fix all the cracks before monsoon arrival.

Cracks are bad for walls

2. Exterior Paint:

• Rainwater is bad for the house due to its high pressure & continuous runaway. A simple way to protect your inner wall is by making the outer (exterior) wall waterproof.

• Use acrylic or PU paint to protect your walls from rainwater. There are many available options such as Dr. Fixit's Raincoat Range or Asian Paint's Ultima Range. Although these are expensive paints but compare to the protection they provide, it is worth every penny.

Exterior Wall Painting

3. Protection of Doors and Window Frames:

• The frames around Doors and Windows are made of usually wood or marble. These frames receive considerably higher stress due to frequent use. Check if there are any loose joints, concrete damage, or cracks.

• Get it fixed urgently by a professional as it is quite difficult to repair yourself. Depending upon the damage, you can use polymer mortar mixture (Dr. Fixit URP admixture), or Acrylic putty, or Silicone sealant (Non-Acidic silicone is recommended).

4. Controlling Effervescence from soil moisture:

• Although it is difficult to control any capillary action of water in an old wall, there are certain remedies that may come in handy.

• Use 2-component cementitious coating products on your affected walls (Detailed article on the application here). Cementitious coatings create a very strong layer of cement which prevents any water to prevent.

For new construction below things need to keep in mind:

A. Integral Waterproofing:

• Integral waterproofing involves directly mixing concrete enhancers in the cement. This help inhibits issues related to capillary action and reduces corrosion of steel bars. Also mixing admixtures improve the properties of the mortar.

• You can use admixtures of famous brands such as Sika, Fosroc, Dr. Fixit, etc. for your construction.

Adding Integral liquid to the Cement mixer

B. Foundation waterproofing:

• After the construction of the plinth beam structure, the use of bituminous coating around it prevents the ascension of moisture in your structure.

• Bitumen (asphalt or coal-tar pitch) is a mixed substance made up of organic liquids that are highly sticky, viscous, and waterproof.

• Apart from the traditional hot coal-tar application, there are Advance materials that can be applied coldly such as Dr. Fixit Bitufix or Sika TarFelt. These materials are very effective in stopping any water ascension from the ground.

Bituminous compound applied in foundation

C. Cementitious coatings:

• After completion of bricklaying of the wall, apply coats of cementitious coatings and then proceed for wall plaster.

• This will cut off any water from brick to plaster and will not damage your expensive paint job.

• You can check Dr. Fixit Pidifin 2K or Asian Paint's Dampblock 2K for cementitious coatings.

Hope this article has cleared most of your doubts.

For any query regarding your repair, drop a query in the below form and we will reach you.

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