While there’s no denying that damp walls can be a real pain, there are many preventative steps that you can take to help lower the chances of any dampness from forming.
Generally speaking, damp walls are most often caused by an excess of moisture in the air, which then reacts with the cold surface of the wall. After this process occurs, condensation forms from the moisture’s warmth against the wall’s coldness, creating damp patches.
Whether you’re planning on sprucing up your home and changing the decor in your rooms, or you want to paint over any remnants of dampness and start anew, choosing to paint your walls is one of the easiest ways to make a room look more uniform and welcoming.
Just because you might have walls prone to dampness doesn’t mean you need to forgo painting them.
In fact, besides taking the standard route of ensuring that your home has proper ventilation and you regularly clean the wall prone to dampness, there is paint on the market that can help to prevent dampness and mold from forming!
Therefore, if you are planning on sprucing up your interior walls, I recommend using damp-proof paint, as this type of paint has been specifically designed to help treat walls prone to dampness while ensuring a beautiful, vibrant, and professional-looking paint job.
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What are the Three Most Common Types of Wall Damp?
Dampness can be caused by multiple factors that occur outside and inside your home.
Three common types of dampness can occur within walls, and these are the following: penetrating dampness, condensation, and rising dampness.
Condensation is the most common type of dampness that can occur within walls and is the most common of the three types of dampness for stimulating mold growth. Usually, condensation dampness can be caused by exterior-facing walls, which tend to be cold due to the placement.
The easiest way to check if your walls have this type of dampness is by feeling the walls that you think are affected and checking to see if they feel wet. If they do, then this is a strong sign that your walls have condensation dampness.
Rising dampness is the next most common type of dampness that can occur within walls.
Rising dampness usually affects walls on the ground floor of a building, as it is primarily caused by water that collects directly around the base/bottom of the foundations.
If your walls are currently being affected by this type of dampness, you will likely notice that there are tide marks located across both the inside and outside of the walls due to the rising dampness.
Usually, walls suffering from rising dampness will usually have stains across the base, as well as the addition of wet patches to the touch.
The third most common type of wall dampness is something that is known as penetrating dampness.
This type of dampness usually occurs when an accumulation of water has built up from the outside of your home, which then permeates its way into your walls.
More often than not, the culprit is usually a broken pipe or gutter, causing water to pool at the base of your home’s walls. On the other hand, penetrating dampness can also sometimes be caused by plumbing issues.
If your walls are currently affected by penetrating dampness, then some of the most common indications are plaster damage, stains, and damp patches.
How Do You Damp-Proof a Wall Before Painting?
Before you apply your paint, there are a few things that you’ll need to do to ensure that you properly prep your interior walls.
Prevention is often better than correction, so I recommend that you carry out a few precautions before applying the paint to ensure that you get the best results.
Consider the following:
Figure Out the Cause
To properly damp-proof your walls before you give them a new lick of paint, you should be sure to figure out what is causing the existing dampness so that you can properly treat them.
Sometimes, you might be able to determine what type of dampness you are dealing with and the cause. However, the best prevention cure is often to seek the assistance of a professional who can properly diagnose and help you ensure that it does not return.
As soon as you know what type of damp you are dealing with and why your walls have it, you will be able to treat it correctly.
Treat the Walls
As soon as you have figured out what it is that’s causing the dampness, you can proceed to treat it.
The type of treatment required will greatly depend on your personal circumstances. However, one of the most common ways that dampness is treated is via waterproofing the walls and correcting the route of the problem, such as cleaning out blocked gutters.
In addition, another way that your wall dampness may need to be treated is by ensuring that your home has proper ventilation. As always, if you’re unsure how to treat your dampness, I recommend you go to a professional contractor who can properly guide you.
Deal with Existing Damage
After treating your walls from dampness, the last step you’ll need to take to ensure that it has been damp-proofed is to patch up any damage.
Damp can sometimes cause cracks and holes within the walls, so you must ensure that all of these things have been repaired before painting and sanding down to ensure the paint will apply smoothly.
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