Rising damp in Booval, QLD

What Booval's building stock does to a damp wall

Booval is Federation and interwar housing on the eastern side, close enough to the old industrial belt that the streets were built early and built solid. Damp here can show as salt rather than moisture — the wall looks dry and there is a white bloom across the brick or the paint is lifting in flakes that come away with a fingernail.

The housing stock in Booval

Where Booval brick is solid rather than cavity, any damp course is likely to be slate or an early bitumen. The visible damage can be disproportionate to the amount of water involved, because it is the salt left behind by evaporation doing the work rather than the water itself. That is why a wall can look worse in a dry month.

The ground under Booval

Where the ground drains well, the problems to look for are localised: a downpipe discharging at the base of a wall, a rainwater tank stand, a garden bed retained against the house. Each of them puts water in one small place, which can confine the damp to one wall rather than the whole house.

Booval in figures

What the Booval figures mean for a damp wall

The detail above points to water put in one place, such as a downpipe or a garden bed, rather than to the Bremer River, 1.3 km from the centre. So start with the wall that shows the damage, and with what discharges or sits against it outside.

Prices and next steps for Booval

The six signs are on the home page, the order of the work on how it works, prices on the cost page and the measuring method on the about page. Where one downpipe or garden bed is the cause, fixing it is a small job. The salt bloom on the brick still has to be dealt with, and that is a separate line.

Talk it through in Booval

Call 0489 270 985

Rising damp help in other suburbs

We work across the Ipswich local government area and the western corridor.