Moisture barriers are a very important requirement prior to the installation of any floorcoverings. There are 2 common areas of moisture problems these are listed below:
- Curing Concrete Moisture:
This is the most common problem in the flooring industry, where all the new buildings these days are built extremely quickly and most concrete slabs have a curing agent applied to them to speed up the drying of the surface. this unfortunately causes the moisture that is in the concrete slab doesn’t have time to reduce to the levels it needs to for the particular relative humidity for floorcovering that to be installed.The way we rectify this and comply with the relevant Australian standards is to apply a moisture barrier. At this time there is really only two types of barrier that are successful:
- Epoxy based: these are applied by trowel or roller over the slab to seal in the moisture and ensure it doesn’t release through to the installed floorcovering.
- Purging: these are applied usually after diamond grinding of the concrete slab to ensure the surface is porous so as the purging moisture barrier that’s usually rolled, sprayed or pushed in with a broom ,can absorb into the slab and purge and then seal the capillary’s in the slab.
- Hydrostatic Pressure: This is usually in old slabs but not always, were rising damp is evident or a leaking pipe or the like has ruptured under the slab and the moisture is coming up through the existing slab. It also occurs were buildings are near or are below the water table ie near a river, stream lake or the like. At this time there is only 1 type of barrier that is successful and that is at least 2-3 coats of epoxy based moisture barrier.