Serving Starke
Wind-Driven Rain Intrusion Starke, FL
Wind pushes rain sideways through window frames, stucco and the base of the wall. The roof can hold and the house still take water. The walls on the side the wind came from are traced first, at windows, sliders, the base of the wall and the soffits. Block that took on water is dried from inside the closed building rather than left to the outdoor air.
Say where the water came from when you call
Often needed alongside
- Humidity & Moisture Drying
When the outdoor air is wetter than the building, opening windows adds water. Drying means a closed building and conditioned air.
- Storm Surge & Tidal Flooding
Surge and tidal water rise from the ground up and carry salt and silt with them. Anything porous they soaked is treated as contaminated.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the paint peeling low on an old brick building in Starke?
Often the brick is wet behind it. Many of Call Street's red brick buildings were painted or stuccoed decades ago, and brick takes up rain readily. With a coat of paint or stucco over it, the water the brick soaks up cannot leave through the face, so it stays in the wall and pushes the finish off, starting where the wall is wettest, near the ground.
How does water rise into the walls of Starke's oldest buildings?
Through their foundations. The early buildings along Call Street rest on continuous brick foundations or concrete slabs, and brick draws water upward the way a wick does. After June's storms soak the ground against it, a brick foundation pulls that water into the base of the wall above, leaving a damp band along the bottom of the inside wall through the summer.
What does a parapet do to the rain on an old Starke building?
A parapet is the short wall standing above a flat roof's edge, and in a storm it is wet on both faces: rain strikes the outside while water on the roof splashes the inside. Where the cap on top has cracked, that water runs down into the brick beneath. The early Call Street buildings have flat roofs with parapets, so their upper walls can show the damp first.
These questions also sit on the Starke page, next to its numbers.