Rehabilitation of buildings in winter conditions

Various factors are taken as the criteria for determining the susceptibility of materials to frost, such as: porosity and water absorption, volume changes, the number of freezing and thawing cycles. Mortars as a mixture of binder, water and sand, after placing and undergoing bonding and solidification processes, represent extremely porous materials, and the same holds for concrete. When the water turns into ice, it changes its volume measure unit from (Vω) into Vt = 1.09 Vω. If the concrete that has not completed bonding is exposed to frost, the process is likely to be suspended, and later when the warming starts, followed by the thawing of concrete, it will need the repeated vibrating in order to bind again and harden up without the detrimental effects on its strength. However, there are cases of devastating effects of frost on the hardened concrete. All the mentioned strategies should be kept in mind when performing remediation.