I usually ignore most of what the waterproofing idiots on the Building Pathology forum on LinkedIn talk about because all they do is rub each other down like Derby Winners however I was a bit bored and read the latest one – about carrots!

If you can’t grow carrots in your garden then carrots don’t exist!?! It was supposed to be an analogy comparing the ‘myth’ of rising damp but just got silly with the ‘brick in a bath of water’ argument again.

Brick in a bath of water!  I would like to say that this is the start of a joke, but it’s not a very funny one…..

• Brick absorbs water, rising up through it from the bath – TRUE and is the basis of a multi-million £ business.

– STOP HERE IF YOU ARE A DAMP PROOFER BECAUSE THE REST WON’T BE OF INTEREST TO YOU –

• Brick, if the bath was outside and the wind was blowing, would dry out above the water – TRUE
• Brick, if it was in a polytunnel and its sides were wrapped in clingfilm, would saturate completely – TRUE
• Brick, if the bath water were drained out, would be dry – TRUE
• Brick, if it was covered in waterproofing cement, would saturate – TRUE
• Brick, if it was coated in lime mortar, would be drier than if coated with waterproofing cement – TRUE

So, what have we learned? Not a lot except if you have a brick in the bath, let the water out rather than drilling holes in it and injecting chemicals.   Or keep your bricks out of  the bath in the first place.