Briggs, K.;
Ball, R.;
McCaig, I.;
(2022)
In-situ measurements of wall moisture in a historic building in response to the installation of an impermeable floor.
UCL Open: Environment
, 4
pp. 1-11.
10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000046.
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Abstract
When impermeable ground bearing slabs are installed in old buildings without a damp-proof course, it is a common belief of conservation practitioners that ground moisture will be ‘driven’ up adjacent walls by capillary action. However, there is limited evidence to test this hypothesis. An experiment was used to determine if the installation of a vapour-proof barrier above a flagstone floor in a historic building would increase moisture content levels in an adjacent stone rubble wall. This was achieved by undertaking measurements of wall, soil and atmospheric moisture content over a 3-year period. Measurements taken using timber dowels showed that the moisture content within the wall did not vary in response to wall evaporation rates and did not increase following the installation of a vapour-proof barrier above the floor. This indicates that the moisture levels in the rubble wall were not influenced by changes in the vapour-permeability of the floor.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | In-situ measurements of wall moisture in a historic building in response to the installation of an impermeable floor |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000046 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000046 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2022 The Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Keywords: | masonry, wall moisture, historic building, conservation, renovation, capillary rise, evaporation, timber dowel, soil moisture deficit |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10162606 |
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