Dampness, seepage or leakage of any sort in a wall or roof of the house is something that a house owner dreads the most. Remedies are available for these problems and locating the source of these is more important than plugging a leakage or covering seepage or dampness. In a three-part series on this most common problem in flats as well as in individual houses, we will be covering different aspects of this problem.
Spot the difference:-
First of all it is important to know the difference between leakage and seepage. Seepage doesn’t require any cracks or passage in walls or roof of the house. It occurs when the wall or slab is porous and water appears on its surface by escaping through the wall or slab. Leakage occurs when there is a crack or hole in the wall or roof. So leakage occurs when water has a clear passage to pass through. In general, seepage leads to damp patches while leakage leads to drippings.
First of all it is important to know the difference between leakage and seepage. Seepage doesn’t require any cracks or passage in walls or roof of the house. It occurs when the wall or slab is porous and water appears on its surface by escaping through the wall or slab. Leakage occurs when there is a crack or hole in the wall or roof. So leakage occurs when water has a clear passage to pass through. In general, seepage leads to damp patches while leakage leads to drippings.
Causes:- Leaking of a water supply pipe joint, crack in a sanitary pipe or leakage of its joint, blockage of a drainage pipe are common causes of appearance of damp patches on the walls. Often, a rainwater pipe gets blocked and rain water finds its way into the porous brickwork of the wall through some hair line crack in the pipe or its not so water tight joints. Sometimes, the mouth of the rainwater pipe gets choked with dust or leaves or some debris on the roof. In that case, the rain water accumulates on the roof and finds its way into the slab through a broken grout in tile or stone joints in the terrace surface and appears on the ceiling. In some cases, the water gets trapped on concrete slab surface below the terrace topping and then begins to drip through a crack or a fan hook. Such a problem, when not attended to for a long time, leads even to the corrosion of reinforcement in the slab.
