How to Dress a Damp Wall: 5 Suitable Coatings

Are your walls showing damp spots in places? Some traces of mold are also visible? Rest assured, it is quite possible to restore all the nobility of your sweet home by choosing an aesthetic coating suitable for damp walls.

A damp-proofing expert can be essential in ensuring your home is free from such moisture. They have the right tools and expertise to control dampness in your home. Choosing the right company for the job is essential for the best results. Visit https://www.fixltd.co.uk/damp-proofing/ for the best damp-proofing company in the UK. Let’s now look at five coating options to dress a damp wall.

What coating to use on a damp wall? 5 possible choices

Tired of this ambient humidity, which, in addition, damages your home? Before dressing the damaged walls, it is, of course, essential to find and treat the origin of this excess humidity. Among the most common causes are:

• Splashes of water, especially in the bathroom,
• Infiltration through the roof or the exterior walls (failure to seal the facade),
• Capillary rise,
• Insufficient ventilation, which promotes condensation,
• An apparent or embedded pipe break,
• Water damage,
• A flood.

After implementing one or more corrective measures, depending on the origin of your humidity problem, cleaning up and insulating the walls concerned, you can select a specific wall covering from those presented below.

1. Tiling: the most common

It is the most used wall covering in humid rooms such as the kitchen or the bathroom. It has many advantages since, in addition to being particularly aesthetic and available in hundreds of colors, patterns, and shapes, it is affordable, easy to maintain, robust, and above all, perfectly waterproof.

Despite the level of the splashback from the sink, the shower, or the washbasin, it can withstand the splashes and jets of water, provided that the joints are perfectly made.

2. Anti-mold paint: the most innovative

The anti-humidity and anti-mold paint is specially designed to resist a humid environment.

Easy to apply and available in several colors and finishes, it contains acrylic resin, latex, and mineral dust, which guarantees perfect adhesion to the support and good resistance to humidity. In addition, this protective paint tends to reduce the development of fungi responsible for mold.

3. Wallpaper: the most vintage

No, wallpaper isn’t just for old houses and apartments! In recent years, it has signed a big comeback with colors and patterns completely in tune with the times.

To dress a damp wall with wallpaper, the ideal is to opt for a washable product placed on a PVC support. These are waterproof references that also resist heat well. There is, therefore, no risk of seeing it come off in your room prone to humidity!

4. Wood: the warmest

Generally, not doing well with water, wood is the big forgotten, yet products covered with a protective coating can perfectly resist a humid environment.

As a wall covering, it is, therefore, necessary to carefully choose a species that is imperatively treated against humidity and able to fit into your bathroom.

5. HPL laminate panels: the fastest to install

Finally, HPL (High Pressure Laminate) panels are perfect for covering a damp or damaged wall, whatever its finish (plastered, tiled, roughcast, painted, etc.). These can be high-density wood composite, PVC, or fiberglass panels. With multiple advantages, this modern coating, quick and easy to install, is renowned for being resistant to humidity, rot-proof, and stain-resistant.

There are multiple solutions for aesthetically covering a wall damaged by humidity. However, it is imperative to isolate, treat and eliminate the causes of the moisture before undertaking this cladding work. Without this, you risk seeing your brand new coating deteriorate much faster than expected!

Diagnose dampness in the house

Diagnosis cannot be made by a quick visual examination. However thorough, it requires observation over a period of several days. Lay a sheet of aluminum foil 50-60 cm long on the damp wall, fixed with thumbtacks. After 4 to 5 days, remove it and examine it:

• if it is covered with moisture on the side facing the part, this is due to condensation;
• if the humidity covers the face pressed against the wall, it is the lack of sealing of the wall which is the cause;
• if the sheet is covered with humidity on both sides, the two phenomena combine.

After determining the causes of dampness in your home, you can look at ways to fix them. Do not always look for the simplest method because it can be short-term. Contacting damp-proofing experts is essential since they will assess the situation in your home and come up with the best remedies.

Capillary rise

It is treated by neutralizing the causes, that is to say, by pushing back the humidification of the foundations: by drainage and recovery of the waterproofing of the foundations. Resin injection treatments are uncertain. The use of electromagnetic devices is not scientifically proven.

Condensation

This is very often remedied by appropriate ventilation, at least for the room concerned. If the insulation is compromised, different solutions are available:

• application of an expanded polystyrene sheet on the inside face of the wall concerned to neutralize the cold wall phenomenon (but without noticeable effect on the insulation);
• insulation of the wall from the inside or from the outside, on the facade by a significant thickness of fibrous mineral, vegetable, or animal insulation.

Infiltrations

They obviously make it necessary to seal the cracked material, but the causes must also be sought:

• infiltrations at the level of the exterior plaster can result from the application of a product that is unsuitable for the wall material or because it has been carried out on a poorly prepared base, which may require completely redoing the plastering, but more often still cracks in the facade coating;
• the impregnation of the facade can come from a leak in the gutter, a gutter, or a descent of the latter to be repaired urgently;
• leaks in the attic result from roofing defects (crack or movement of a tile, a slate to be replaced or replaced, cracking of a flashing, in particular a chimney stack or a window sill);
• subsidence of the ground under part of the foundations is treated by digging the area concerned and injecting concrete (micro-piles) or a resin to consolidate it.