Background
The acronym ‘EMERISDA’ stands for ‘Effectiveness of Methods against Rising Damp in Buildings’. The phenomenom of rising damp is widespread in ancient buildings, and an important cause of degradation. Not only does it cause an unpleasant inner climate in buildings, but it is also responsible for intense degradation of materials, due to salt crystallisation, frost, development of moulds and fungi. Because of climatic change, it is even possible that these degradation phenomena increase in the following decades or centuries.
Objective
Finding a solution has been a challenge for science and industry. These complex and widespread problems form an opportunity for innovations to be developed and applied. Currently we see a large variety of solutions on the market, making finding the right solution a problem for building contractors, owners and heritage administrations.
This project aims mainly at two important outputs:
- an evaluation and comparison of existing techniques
- guidelines for the owners, administrations, architects and contractors, to determine the best solution for every individual case of rising damp.
