DAMP PROOFING MEMBRANE TYPES
The damp proofing membranes belong to the worked-to-shape solid damp proofing materials category, they are industry originated materials and are applied in the construction site.
They are categorized under the worked-to-shape bituminous materials and worked-to-shape materials. The first category is bituminous sheets and bituminous membranes, while the second category consists of Synthetic membranes. ”
Bituminous membranes (Bitumen)
In the market you can find many types of bitumen such as plastomeric (APP), elastomeric (SBS), elastoplastomeric or Self adhesive, which mainly consist of the main body and the carrier. The main body of the bituminous membrane consists of a bituminous mixture and an addition of polymeric resins.
For example the addition of polypropylene Plastomeric resins (APP), creates a more plastic and heat resilient bituminous mixture, while adding elastomeric materials (SBS) creates a mixture more flexible and therefore more resilient to low temperatures.
The carrier acts as reinforcement in the bituminous membrane and determines the degree of its elasticity, improves its mechanical resilience in tensile strength, perforation resistance, bending resistance and increases its capacity of receiving the contractions and extensions of the substrate.
Bitumen is superior to the brushable damp proofing materials in the fact that basically they achieve a higher and uniform thickness of damp proofing.
“Bitumen has the following advantages:
- Higher and uniform thickness of damp proofing.
- Long lifespan.
- Easy application without the use of specialized equipment
- Easy maintenance and failure detection
- They offer limited accessibility
- Satisfactory resilience to static perforation
- Increased resilience to fatigue due to solar radiation (membranes with granulate or aluminum sheet finishing)
- Increased albedo and high reflectivity when using membranes with white granulate
- In some cases, there is a possibility of fully damp proofing a surface anew by appending on an existing (well applied) single layer of pre-existing bituminous membrane.
- Increased dimensional stability
- Fast application, easy to restore details (eg guardrails twists, solar water heating bases, etc.) in relation to synthetic membranes.
- Cheaper solution compared to synthetic membranes.