Why Adelaide's salt damp treatments failed in the 1970s, and what the heritage guide says now

What the guide records

The guide is a joint publication of the Heritage Council of NSW, Heritage Victoria, the South Australian Department for Environment and Heritage and Adelaide City Council. It says that in South Australia in the 1960s and 1970s there were many cases of failed damp treatments as the salt damp problem was poorly understood.

So many complaints were made to consumer affairs, it says, that the State government established a Salt Damp Research Committee, which operated in the period 1974 to 1982.

Why Adelaide

The guide says Adelaide is well known for its bad salt damp because it has hot drying summers and very salty soils, whereas in Sydney the more humid climate and lower salt levels mean the decay rates are slower. It calls salt damp a term widely used in South Australia for high salt concentrations associated with rising damp.

It states the cause for Adelaide as a whole and no suburb, and this article draws no line between one suburb and another.

What it asks for now

Basic housekeeping first: it says not to insert any form of damp-proof course until those measures are completed and their effectiveness assessed over a period of time, at least a year. It says not to use hard cement mortar to repoint failed lime mortar joints. And it says that when salts abound, do not just insert a damp-proof course; also remove excessive salts from above it.

These are the guide's dos and don'ts, which it offers as guidance, not law.

What to ask a provider

The guide says not to accept the cheapest quote for chemical dampcoursing without checking the contractor's references and the details of the proposed works, such as drill hole spacing and depth, and how the contractor will determine when sufficient fluid has been impregnated. Those are the questions a quote has to answer.

What this does not say

The guide was published in 2008 and none of the pages we read says how well any method works today. A provider's claim about results is theirs to evidence.