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Brickwork moisture is a well-known problem for any building object user. Moisture presence is almost inevitable in moderate climate and its balanced amounts are generally accepted. More harmful is the phenomenon of extended moisture presence which may be caused by many factors like water vapor condensation, ground water capilarry rise, rainfalls, inudations or sanitary installations failures. This phenomenon is also disadvantageous because it limits building functionallity from both constructional and hygienic reasons.
Problem of extended moisture is particularly visible in old, historical objects built without suitable horizontal isolations. Ground water gets full access to groundwork and then, due to the capillary forces to the internal parts of the wall. Excessive water amount leads to the destruction of material structure with multiple processes of congealing and melting during winter season, wood decay, rapid corrosion of steel reinforcement elements and salt ions crystallization in transported water. Also it should be mentioned here, that water enables harmful microorganisms and mould development, what in turn may lead to respiratory system diseases, infections, allergies, eyes and skin irritations. All above negative consequences of water presence inside the building barriers are the reasons to undertake the improvement of the existing methods and introducing the new, more precise techniques of water detection in the building barriers.
In this paper it is presented the possibility of TDR (Time Domain Reflectometry) application for in-situ measurements of brickwork moisture. TDR technique has been applied for many years for soil environment moisture detection and since several years it has been applied for building materials and barriers. But its invasive character in most cases did not enable its practical application or was the reason of many technical problems. Presented in the article surface TDR probe enables non-invasive building material moisture detection and that's why it has a good potential for in-situ measurements.
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