Water moves the salt. The salt does the damage. Treating one without the other is why walls come back.
Talk it throughRising Damp Perth assesses and treats damp across the Perth metropolitan area.
Dissolved salts travel up a wall with the groundwater and are left behind as it evaporates. Crystallising inside the pores, they expand with enormous local force — enough to push render off and take the face off a brick. The wall is not being dissolved; it is being levered apart from the inside.
From the ground, like everywhere. And on the coast, from the air: salt spray lands on the wall and works inward. Scarborough, Cottesloe and Fremantle carry both loads at once, which is why surface damage there can be well advanced while the moisture reading is only moderate.
Contaminated render is removed rather than covered. Where contamination is heavy the wall may be poulticed to draw salts out before anything new goes on. The replacement is a salt-retarding, breathable system that holds the remaining salts back from the finished surface.
| Work | Indicative range | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Salt-retarding replaster, per square metre | $120 - $260 | Old contaminated render off, breathable system on. Can be the larger part of the job. |
Every range, and how the figures were set, is on the cost page. A fixed price follows the assessment.
We carry out assessments across the Perth metropolitan area, including:
Rising Damp Perth