It has been noticed that people rely on Brick-bat coba (roda) on the slab of terrace for waterproofing of a structure or in order to protect the structure from water seepages.
As two sides of a coin, Waterproofing on one hand is the most important aspect of construction and on the other hand it has been overlooked significantly, which result into damages of concrete, steel & expensive interiors and at the end spending huge amounts for repairing the wear and tear caused by water seepages.
Common practice:
Consequences:
Later on after insight observation it is revealed that the performance of Brick-bat depends upon two major factors.
- Quality of material used for Brick-bat coba
- Skillful workmanship
Running with the time and due to cut-throat competitions in the market of cement and bricks, the quality of both has been compromised a lot inorder to maintain minimum profit margin despite of rising cost of raw materials and even the supply of skillful labour for brick-bat is on declining path day by day and all these factors have seriosuly affected the performance of Brick-bat coba.Even if a single factor out of both mentioned above remains unfulfilled, Brick-bat coba will not perform at its best.
Now, there are some more factors besides the two mentioned above , which needs to be understand for low performance of Brick-bat coba as a waterproofing solution.
- Cracks Formation - Cracks are formed on the upper surface of brick-bat coba due to lack of proper compaction or lack of proper curing and most important Cement cannot withstand uv rays which sometimes results into main reason for crack formation. Water starts penetrating through these cracks into the bricks laid for brick-bat coba.
- Acts as water reservoir - As we know, bricks do not create entry barrier for water seepage itself, infact it absorbs the water. Now what happens when a brick is saturated to its full extent? It definitely will not absorb more water resulting into flowing of extra water into concrete slab and thus water penetrates into the slab through the cracks in concrete thus, damaging steel and structure.
- Heavy weight - As the weight of the saturated bricks is more than the unsaturated bricks which results into increasing unnecessary passive load onto the structure which could have been avoided. This infact, worsen the condition of structure with developing more cracks and lessen the healthy life of a structure.
Conclusion:
Brick-bat coba if applied can only be useful for maintaining the slope on the upper surface to ensure uninterupted flow ofrain water into drains or rain water pipes.
