Module 4 · Evidence-Based Diagnosis
4.4 Moisture Profiling
8 min read
A single moisture content tells you how wet one point is. A profile — a series of readings across depth or up a height — tells you which way the water is moving, and that is the diagnostic. Practitioners who take one reading per wall are gathering the least informative version of the most expensive data they collect.
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson you will be able to:
- Design a depth profile that establishes direction of moisture ingress.
- Design a height profile that distinguishes a rising from a penetrating pattern.
- Interpret common profile shapes and their mechanisms.
- Recognise where a profile is ambiguous and what would resolve it.
Key terms
- Depth profile
- Moisture content at successive depths through a wall's thickness. Establishes which face water is arriving from.
- Height profile
- Moisture content at successive heights up a wall. Distinguishes a source at the base from one higher up.
- Declining profile
- Moisture falling with distance from a face or a level, indicating the source is at the high end.
- Inverted profile
- Moisture higher at depth than at the surface. Water is arriving from behind and evaporating at the face.
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