After living in a cozy rental apartment for years, you and your family have finally made the plunge. After lots of consideration, looking for people to help you with the big decision and a lot of searching around the city – you have finally found home! It’s comfortable, spacious and living here feels like something familiar. This is it.

Now, wouldn’t you want to preserve that feeling? Wouldn’t you want home to feel like home, ten, fifteen, twenty years from today?

Homes, and any kind of buildings, should be preserved at the structural level onwards so as to prevent wear and tear. Dampness is one of the most common things to affect a building, especially in a climate as turbulent as India’s. If the exterior of a building turns damp after a few monsoons, the hygiene of the building and inhabitants is at great risk. Dampness is a precursor to germs, which translates to diseases – often serious or fatal. Additionally, the structure of the building can fall apart.

The causes of a building succumbing to the damp are as follows :

  • Subsoil moisture rising through foundation beds.
  • Rainwater seeping in from external walls.
  • Rainwater coming through parapet and compound walls.
  • Moisture deposited on building due to condensation.

Some ways in which dampness can be prevented in the construction process itself are the following :

  • Using damp-proof courses which are layers of water-repellent materials like metal sheets, mortar, mastic asphalt, etc, provided horizontally and vertically between the foundation and the plinth.
  • Filling up pores of material susceptible to moisture with a layer of water-repellent material
  • Plastering walls with a lime cement plaster mix in the proportion of 1:6 (1-cement, 6-lime)
  • Adding compounds like chalk, fullers earth, calcium chlorides to the concrete/mortar while mixing
  • Building an efficient cavity wall, where there is no contact between the inner & outer walls, hence minimal moisture penetration

There we have it, folks! Build your dream home with pride and joy, but make sure the pesky rains don’t bring it down. We, at Maha Cement, wish you a very happy building.