"My house is my fortress" and every owner always wants his shelter after construction not to present any "surprises" at least for the first few years. But, this doesn't always happen...
Many owners in the very first years are faced with the problem of wetting the first rows of bricks, and a little later, this dampness also passes into the room. There are several reasons for this...
Reason #1
The first mistake is that the material for the cut-off waterproofing, which is laid between the basement and the wall of the building, is incorrectly selected, sometimes there is none at all.
Reason # 2
The second reason is the low base. During rains, water bounces off the blind area of the house and hits the wall; in rainy regions, if the walls are not protected by anything, then they do not dry out at all. The same problem occurs in snowy areas, when the snow level is constantly above the plinth.
Reason #3
The third reason is the protruding plinth beyond the plane of the wall. Even if there is good cut-off waterproofing, it does not help. Snow constantly lies on this side or there is water after rain, so the brick is immediately saturated with moisture and efflorescence appears on the wall.
Poor cut-off waterproofing, or lack of it, is the most insidious problem and in order to solve it, you will need to lay out a considerable amount of money. This problem is solved by injecting special chemical compounds into pre-drilled holes in the wall, which, by saturating the brick, make it waterproof.
The procedure is not cheap and it is better to immediately make sure that the cut-off is not made from cardboard-based roofing material, but from materials that are designed specifically for this, for example, glass isol and the like, made on the basis of synthetic materials.
But, the second and third reasons are almost the same and are solved by similar methods.
Solution #1
To prevent the base of the wall from getting wet, it must be protected with a waterproof material. If the plinth is low, then lift this material into the wall, and if the plinth protrudes, then the protrusion must be closed. This can be done using factory facade panels or ordinary sheet metal products - abutment strips, aprons, skirts, and more.
Regarding the protruding base, I have an extremely negative attitude towards it precisely because of the above shortcomings. In my house, I made a plinth and a wall in the same plane so that water does not accumulate at the junction, and many generally hang a brick over the plinth, releasing it by 2-3 cm.
My plinth:
Solution # 2
In order not to spend money on panels, many do it even easier and purchase water-repellent compounds (water repellents), they are inexpensive and 350-450 rubles will be enough to process several rows of masonry.
Water repellents are a series of special compounds designed to protect materials from moisture. They form an ultra-thin film that closes the pores of the material without compromising the properties of vapor permeability.
On the protruding plinth, you can make a skirt from the solution and, after a week, apply a water repellent to it and to the base of the wall around the perimeter.
I myself successfully use such compositions, since our old house does not have a basement at all, and before that we constantly had the problem of dampness and efflorescence. The water repellent lasts for about 4-5 years, then it needs to be re-treated, it is better to choose compounds that do not change the shade of the brick.
Perhaps these are all methods of dealing with wetting bricks, but let me repeat once again ...
... in order to avoid problems with dampness of the first rows of masonry, it is important to immediately make a high-quality cut-off waterproofing and not save on it, and it is also better to abandon the protruding base, it has no there are no pluses.
Thank you for your attention, good luck and good luck!