Case Studies in Construction Materials 1 (2014) 125137

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Case Studies in Construction Materials

jo u rn al ho m epag e: ww w.els evie r .c om /lo cat e/cs c m

Case Study

A holistic survey of dampness in a three bedroom residential

bungalow in Kumasi, Ghana
Ko Agyekum *, Joshua Ayarkwa, Emmanuel Adinyira
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Building Technology, Faculty street, Kumasi, Ghana

A R T I C L E

I N F O

Article history:
Received 7 March 2014
Received in revised form 23 May 2014
Accepted 6 July 2014
Available online 23 July 2014
Keywords:
Block
walls
Dampness
Moisture content
Residential bungalow

A B S T R A C T

For many years the problem of dampness has assumed alarming dimensions in public
and private buildings in Ghana. This paper presents a case study of a three bedroom
residential bungalow of the Department of Urban Roads in Kumasi which suffers from
the problem of dampness since four years after the building was constructed and
occupied. The study adopted a holistic approach to dampness surveying involving a
two-stage protocol of damp investigation to identify the areas in the walls severely
affected by dampness. Results from the visual survey (site inspection) identied
symptoms such as blistering of paints, aking of mortar, damp patches in horizontal
bands, surface eforescence and in some cases mold growth to be associated with the
walls of the building. The ndings showed that dampness in the building could be due
to a combination of several sources including plumbing leakages, rain water splash
back, lateral penetration and rising dampness. Results from the non-destructive tests
revealed higher moisture contents in the walls of the bathrooms (externally and
internally), living room and bedrooms. The moisture content recorded in the
bathrooms were unusually higher than the other rooms and a detailed analysis
revealed that plumbing leakage was a contributory factor, especially in the internal
walls. Though the study identied plumbing leakages and water penetration as
contributory factors to the dampness experienced in the walls of the bathrooms,
further destructive tests are recommended for the conrmation of the true source(s)
of dampness in the walls of the bedrooms and living room to greatly assist in targeting
the correct remediation to manage or cure the problem.
2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the
CC BY-NC-SA license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncsa/3.0/).

1. Introduction
Dampness, one of the most serious structural problems in walls of buildings occurs when structural elements are
wetted through moisture rise by capillary action (Seeley, 1994; Cheetham, 1973). Over the years, researchers have
dened dampness in buildings in several ways. According to Burkinshaw and Parrett (2004), dampness is dened as the
amount of moisture content in a material and classied it as either capillary moisture content, equilibrium
moisture content, hygroscopic moisture content, total moisture content or potential moisture content. Dampness is also
an excess moisture that causes cosmetic problems, spoils decorations, deteriorate building fabrics and causes structural
problems (Oxley and Gobert, 1989).

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +233 246761879.

E-mail address: agyekum.ko1@gmail.com (K. Agyekum).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cscm.2014.07.002
2214-5095/ 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-SA license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).

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K. Agyekum et al. / Case Studies in Construction Materials 1 (2014) 125137

Fig. 1. Three bedroom residential bungalow for staff of the DUR, Kumasi.

For several years, the problem of dampness has assumed alarming dimensions in many public and private buildings in
Ghana (Agyekum et al., 2013). This problem is normally associated with symptoms such as hygroscopic salts or surface
eforescence, decayed skirting, and mold growth (Agyekum et al., 2013). Dampness, if left unattended, will create
adverse health effects to the occupants of buildings (Oxley and Gobert, 1989). This study aimed at identifying and
documenting areas in the walls of a three bedroom residential building severely affected by dampness through visual
inspections and moisture content measurements.
1.1. Description of the study area
The Department of Urban Roads (DUR) is a department under the Ministry of Roads and Highways in Ghana
(MRH). It is responsible for the construction and maintenance of urban roads in Ghana. The Department of Urban Roads
was created in 1988 as civil service organization under the MRH through an administrative order. This department is
established in all the ten regions in Ghana and has residential bungalows for its staff. One such bungalow situated at
Danyame in Kumasi is the subject of the current study (Fig. 1).
Danyame is a suburb of the Subin Sub-Metro which falls under the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly. The Kumasi
Metropolis is the most populous district in the Ashanti Region. It is located in the transitional forest zone about 270 km
north of the national capital, Accra.
The Metropolis falls within the Wet Semi Equatorial climatic zone. The vegetation of the Metropolis falls within the
moist semi-deciduous South-East Ecological Zone (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Districts in the Ashanti Region (Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly marked in red).

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