Damp Proof Courses
Moisture may ascend into a building from the foundation of a wall or gain ingress into a building from a wet patch of ground, where it meets a solid wall. The manifest result of this process is called damp. One of many methods of resisting such ingresses of water is to construct the wall with several low courses of dense engineering bricks such as Staffordshire blue bricks. This method of damp proofing appears as a distinctive navy blue band running around the circumference of a building. The efficacy of this means of keeping out damp is more limited by the permeability of the mortar bedding and perpends joining the bricks, than by that of the bricks themselves.
Read more about this topic: Brickwork
Famous quotes containing the words damp, proof and/or courses:
“Tasting of the sweet damp woods and of the rain one inch above the meadow:
It was like feasting upon air.”
—William Jay Smith (b. 1918)
“A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation—a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“All the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)