WATER ROTTER
Testing building products and systems for water and moisture penetration

Water vapour causes mould and rot in buildings – it can lead to asthma, allergies and sick building syndrome. It can cause sturdy buildings to crumble into the ground.

Now a simple permeability testing procedure for building products, paints and vapour barriers is available - from permeability specialists Versaperm

The company offers a technical service to the building industry that can measure the vapour transmission rate (permeability) of a wide range of products, barriers, treatments and coatings. The service is particularly important with the growth in both “breathing building” constructions and historical building renovations - where the wrong vapour barriers can cause a building to rot away in just a few years.

Management of water vapour in the built environment is a complex process that, in an ideal world, involves prevention rather than cure. By analysing the permeability of components and structures, optimised solutions can be produced.

Versaperm has substantial experience in the area and is always interested in the challenge of measuring the leakage rates of new designs. In some places you need effective vapour barriers, in others moisture must be allowed to flow through the fabric of the building.

The Versaperm service is unusual in that it can measure very thick samples for permeability. Using the standard flat sample chamber, the company can measure samples up to 50mm thick, which is sufficient for most laminates, timber, felts, films and other materials used in the building industry.

However, the company also has a number of non-standard chamber configurations for measuring almost any thickness of building material. It also has specialist equipment for measuring adhesives, mastics and other sealing materials for leakage rates.

The company uses its own-developed MVTR (Moisture Vapour Transmission) equipment, which can produce accurate and reliable results to better than one part per million – sometimes in the parts per hundreds of million range. With some materials these results can be achieved in as little as 30 minutes, but even with hard to measure foils, results can normally be turned around in a day. Sensitivities are in the range 0.05 – 3200gm/m2/day.

ENDS

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Please send any sales enquiries to Christopher Roberts, Versaperm Limited ,
B940-H41 Popjak Road, Sittingbourne Research Centre, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8PS, tel: 01 1795 430 490, fax: +44 (0) 1795 438 274
e.mail info@versaperm.co.uk Web: http://www.versaperm.co.uk

For further Press Information please contact Gerry Palmer @ the Palmer & Rose Partnership. Tel 01494 637499, fax 01494 452630,
e.mail gerry@palmer-rose.co.uk.