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Procedia Engineering 172 (2017) 363 – 368

Modern Building Materials, Structures and Techniques, MBMST 2016

Analysis of the moisture content of masonry walls in historical

buildings using the basement of a medieval town hall as an example
Anna Hołaa, *, Zygmunt Matkowskia, Jerzy Hołaa
a
Wroclaw University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engeneering, Wybrzeze Stanislawa Wyspianskiego 27, 50-370 Wroclaw, Poland

Abstract

The paper concerns the issue of analysing the moisture content of thick masonry walls in historical buildings. The research
methods, including non-destructive methods, which are useful in the assessment of such objects, were first indicated. Then, the
exemplary results of tests conducted in the basement of a medieval town hall with the use of some of the previously mentioned
methods were presented. Based on the authors' own research, the developed correlative relation between the mass moisture of
brick walls in the analysed building and the dimensionless parameter which was measured using the non-destructive dielectric
method was also presented. This relation was used to assess the mass moisture of brick walls in this building. It can also be
successfully used for non-destructive testing of the moisture content in walls of other buildings dating back to the turn of the
XIV/XV century.
© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MBMST 2016.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MBMST 2016
Keywords: historical buildings; walls; mass moisture; moisture content testing methods.

1. Introduction

The masonry walls of historical buildings - made of ceramic brick or stone - are often characterized by a high
thickness and a lack of damp insulations. It refers primarily to horizontal insulations, which began to be executed in
a modern way at the beginning of the twentieth century. The lack of damp insulations causes direct and prolonged
contact of a wall with the ground. As a result, water molecules that are contained in the substrate along with salts

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +48-71-320-40-95

E-mail address: anna.hola@pwr.edu.pl

1877-7058 © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MBMST 2016
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2017.02.041
364 Anna Hoła et al. / Procedia Engineering 172 (2017) 363 – 368

dissolved in them penetrate elements of the masonry wall making it damp. These elements are both ceramic brick
and mortar from joints, and in walls made of stone these joints are usually of a large width.
Capillarity, the process of which was described inter alia in [1,2,3], causes water molecules to be transported into
the wall and into its higher parts. In the case of a masonry wall with a large thickness, from which evaporation of
moisture is naturally difficult, the degree of moisture content gradually increases with time. Table 1 shows the
degrees of moisture content of masonry walls acquired in literature [4,5].

Table 1. Degrees of moisture content of masonry walls in relation to the value of mass moisture content [4,5].
Degree of moisture content Mass moisture content [%]
I – masonry wall with permissible moisture content 0-3
II – masonry wall with elevated moisture content >3-5
III – medium damp masonry wall >5-8
IV – very damp masonry wall > 8 - 12
V – wet masonry wall > 12

The effect of long-term and excessive moisture in a masonry wall is, among other things, susceptibility to frost
erosion which progresses with time and in consequence, the chipping of fragments of bricks and mortar, as well as
the crystallization of salts. These processes cause the gradual reduction in the strength of a wall, reduction of its
cross section and also its load bearing capacity [4,6,7].

2. Methods of testing the moisture content in the masonry walls of historical buildings

In historical buildings, actions against the process of masonry wall destruction are often only taken when there is
a need to bring back the utility value of an object. One of the first actions that aims to restore the former glory of a
building object should include the execution of moisture content tests of masonry walls and the determination of
moisture distributions along their height and across their thickness with regards to the quantitative approach. The
non-destructive methods which are recommended for these tests [4, 5, 8] enable measurements to be carried out in
any number of places, at multiple times and at different times and also without damage to the historic tissue. Support
using destructive methods is usually necessary, however, the amount of tests made in such a way should be kept to a
minimum. Figure 1 summarizes the methods of testing the moisture content in masonry walls that are accepted in
cases of historical objects.

Fig. 1. Methods of testing the moisture content of masonry walls that are accepted in cases of historical buildings.
 Anna Hoła et al. / Procedia Engineering 172 (2017) 363 – 368 365

Tests of the moisture content of masonry walls, combined with the assessment of salinity are not only crucial in
the selection of an appropriate method of protection against damp and the removal of harmful salts from a wall, but
they also facilitate the estimation of costs of actions which accelerate the drying of masonry walls. They are also,
which is very important, a reference level for moisture content tests performed at a later time, which enables the
effectiveness of drying actions and executed damp-proof protections to be assessed.

3. An example of moisture content tests in a historical building

In order to highlight the above issues, the article presents the results of tests of the moisture content of damp brick
walls in the unused basement of a medieval town hall located in northern Poland. The impetus for the execution of
these tests was the decision to restore the basement and open it to the public. Figure 2 shows a general view of the
town hall, the renovated basement walls and also the damp basement walls.

Fig. 2. Town hall located in northern Poland: (a) general view; (b) renovated basement walls; (c) damp basement walls.

3.1. Description of the basement and carried out tests

The external and internal walls of the basement of the town hall are made of ceramic solid brick with lime mortar
and their thickness is in the range of 700 - 2200 mm. The external walls in some places have stone foundations of a
height not exceeding 1300 mm above the floor level. The lime mortar that fills the wide joints between the stone
elements is rotten and its losses even reach 150 mm into the masonry wall. The vaults of the basement are brick -
cross or staple - while the floors are brick or ground.
Tests of the moisture content of the masonry building walls were carried out using two methods: non-destructive
dielectric, which enables the average moisture content of the wall to be specified to a depth of about 100 mm from
the surface, and also the destructive drying-weighing method. The number of tests performed with the latter one was
reduced to a minimum due to conservation restrictions.
Tests conducted using the destructive method were used to establish the correlative relation between the mass
moisture content of the assessed walls and the dimensionless indications used for non-destructive testing with a
gauge based on the measurement of dielectric properties of a material. For this purpose, non-destructive
measurements of the moisture content of the masonry wall were carried out in more than thirty locations. Then, in
the same places, samples from a depth of 10-100 mm were taken from the wall and their moisture content was
determined using the drying-weighing method. On the basis of the obtained results, the correlative relation between
the indications of dielectric gauge X and mass moisture content Um of the wall was determined and is shown in
Figure 3.
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Fig. 3. The correlative relation between the indications of dielectric gauge X and mass moisture content Um of the wall.

Non-destructive tests of the mass moisture content of brick walls in the town hall were carried out in a total of
hundreds of places and at a height ranging from 200 to 2000 mm from the level of the floor. They allowed the mass
moisture distribution along the height of the walls to be determined. Moreover, in some selected places destructive
tests were carried out across the thickness of the walls and involved the execution of boreholes and taking samples
of the damp wall.

3.2. Test results and their analysis

Based on the conducted tests, it was concluded that the mass moisture content of the masonry walls in the
basement of the town hall varies depending on the height at which the measurements were carried out and
depending on the depth from which the samples for testing were taken.
Figure 4 shows the obtained exemplary, but typical for the tested brick walls, distributions of the mass moisture
content at the height of the internal and external walls obtained using the non-destructive dielectric method. As can
be seen, the highest value of the subsurface weight moisture content appears in the walls in the area of the floor. In
many measuring points located in this area, the measured high values classify the tested masonry walls as very damp
according to the classification found in literature regarding the degree of moisture content [4, 5]. The moisture
content of masonry walls decreases with the distance from the floor. The distribution of the subsurface moisture
content of the external walls differs significantly from the distribution, which is characteristic for internal walls. This
is due to the fact that the external walls are damp from the bottom and from their side (a lack of horizontal and
vertical damp insulation).
In turn, Figure 5 shows the exemplary distributions of the mass moisture content of a brick wall across its
thickness, which were specified using the destructive method. These tests indicate that the moisture content inside
the masonry walls is much higher than the one measured in the subsurface area, and its value increases with an
increase of depth from which the samples were taken for testing. Based on the conducted tests, it was concluded that
the mass moisture content inside the masonry walls enables the tested walls to be classified as wet. It is worth
 Anna Hoła et al. / Procedia Engineering 172 (2017) 363 – 368 367

mentioning that the highest value of the mass moisture content inside one of the external masonry walls was equal to
29%, which indicates a full saturation of the wall with water.

Fig. 4. Exemplary distributions of the mass moisture content of the brick wall obtained using the non-destructive dielectric method along the
height of the walls (a) internal; (b) external.
368 Anna Hoła et al. / Procedia Engineering 172 (2017) 363 – 368

Fig. 5. Exemplary distributions of the mass moisture content of the brick walls across their thickness, specified using the destructive weighing-
drying method: (a) external walls - the test was conducted for half of the thickness of the wall and at a height of 1500 mm above the level of the
floor; (b) the internal walls - the test was performed across the entire thickness of the wall at a height of 400 mm above the level of the floor.

The carried out moisture content tests showed the image of the dampness of the brick walls in the basement of
the town hall, which was a result of capillary actions of water from the ground. This image is a consequence of a
lack of horizontal and vertical damp insulations, which clearly indicate that before the beginning of repair works of
the basement, the flow of the moisture from the ground to the external and internal walls should be stopped by the
execution of secondary damp insulations. This will enable these partitions to be dried to an acceptable moisture level
during their usage.

4. Conclusions

1. Tests of the moisture content of thick walls in historical buildings are necessary in the case of buildings for
which decisions to restore their intended use were undertaken. Non-destructive methods, and especially the
dielectric method, are recommended for such tests. The use of destructive methods should be limited to the
necessary minimum, for example, to determine the correlative relation between the tested mass moisture
content and dimensionless indications of devices used for non-destructive testing.
2. The correlative relation between the indications X of the GANN UNI 2 gauge used in tests, which relied on
measurements of the dielectric properties of the material, and also the mass moisture content Um, was
determined on the basis of conducted experimental tests of the walls of the medieval town hall. This relation,
which is described with a mathematical equation, was used for the non-destructive evaluation of the moisture
content of the brick walls in the basement of this building and can also be used for the non-destructive
evaluation of the moisture content of brick walls in other medieval buildings.
3. On the basis of non-destructive tests of the basement walls in the medieval town hall, which were carried out
with the use of the dielectric method, and also with the help of the previously determined correlative relation,
it has been shown that the external walls in the area of the subsurface are very damp (Um > 8%) up to a height
of 1400 mm which was measured from the floor level, while the internal walls are only very damp to a height
of 200 mm. Furthermore, it has been proven with the aid of the destructive test method that the mass moisture
content inside the examined walls is high and qualifies them as wet (Um > 12%).

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